


from ruins flowers bloom

by dreamsheartstory



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Sass, Anya doesn't die, Azgeda, Background Clexa, Background Linctavia - Freeform, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Polis, Slow Burn, Winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/pseuds/dreamsheartstory
Summary: Raven Reyes is just trying to survive the ground and save her people. Having lost the one she loved and nearly lost her life she feels like a hollow ruin of the person she once was. By her side, never letting her give up, reminding her that beautiful things flourish in adversity, is Anya. This isn't what she asked for, this isn't what she wanted... but maybe, just maybe, it's what she needs.___________picks up roughly toward the end of season 2, except Anya never died, and Finn didn't massacre the village (though he still died just not on Lexa's orders), no betrayal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> born from a couple of answered prompts on tumblr ([here](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com/post/153668565212/w-ranya) & [here](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com/post/153717532067/c-ranya))... there will likely be more not quite sure where I'm taking this except for slow burn and ranya end game.

Raven slams the canister down on her worktable and Jasper jumps two feet straight up, nearly dropping and juggling the container he’s working on attaching a fuse to. 

He shoots her a look like she’s crazy, and she nods her head back and forth, rolling her eyes. He has a point. She _could_  have blown them up, but it’s been hours since Anya went out with the other scouts and she hasn’t returned. The others have. 

And she’s stuck here making bombs the grounders can lob at the mountain men, but that hopefully won’t explode and kill _them_  before they get into the fight. 

Her last test was a little _too_ explosive and unstable, and they’d lost a few good warriors when one of the bombs was struck during a skirmish.

“Sorry,” Raven mutters and moves the container away from the edge of the workbench gently.

It wouldn’t be so terrible if she wasn’t trapped in camp still recovering from surgery, her back and half her leg still black and blue from internal bleeding, wondering if she ever wouldn’t be in pain again. The pain made everything worse, drew out every moment until she thought it would never end and that she would never make it through.

Usually focusing on being useful helped. If she could make something that helped their fight, or if she could help Clarke lay out plans with Lexa and Anya she didn’t feel so much like she was useless and damaged.

“You alright?” Jasper asks quietly, as if he’s afraid to spook her.

“Yeah… yeah… I’m fine.” Raven shrugs and grabs a reel of twine that they’ve been fashioning into fuses and starts to cut lengths of it.

Except she isn’t because she can’t stop thinking about how Anya isn’t back yet and she should have been back before dark, and she’s been working by lamplight for the better part of the last hour. Least of all she isn’t because she really doesn’t want to think about why she’s really worried about why Anya isn’t back.

The nagging voice in the back of her head tells her that it’s more than just the fact that the intelligence the scouts went out to collect is vital to their attack being successful in the morning. She tries to keep herself focused on the task at hand, keeping everyone alive, because it always comes down to her to keep everyone alive.

Her stomach clenches at the thought, that what if… Raven hasn’t eaten all day, first because she was too busy and now because she’s too worried and wrapped up in what she’s trying so very hard not to feel.

She still goes to sleep at nights seeing Finn bleeding out and dying, nothing anyone could do for him, not Abby, not any of the grounders, and Clarke, taking the act of mercy and putting him out of his misery, letting them say goodbye and then taking away his pain. She remembers the way his body had gone still, the heartbeat gone. She wakes up screaming.

Raven shoves the twine away from her and reaches for the gunpowder and other materials that they’re fashioning into bombs. She sets it back down when she catches Jasper eyeing her out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m not, _okay_?” She snaps. Raven breathes in sharply through her nose and makes a slow labored circle away from the table. Her back is killing her, pain shooting both up her back to her neck and shoulder, and down her leg. “I’m sorry… can you keep going with this? Maybe grab Monty, we need to make as many of these as we can, and I need a break.”

Raven limps toward the opening in the tent, one hand pressed firmly to her low back. 

“Yeah, no problem. Try to rest,” Jasper’s words trail after her.

That’s when she hears it, a horse approaching, guards moving, quiet whispered shouts echoing through camp.

She limps faster not certain if she should head toward the stables or Lexa’s tent. Anya’s faster though and by the time Raven has to pick a direction Anya is there, blood caked on one cheek, her clothes covered in mud and what might be more blood, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.

Raven’s heart leaps in her chest and she doesn’t know if she should yell or cry. With Anya standing in front of her, all she knows is that the intensity she’s felt all day grows worse. The ache to reach out and touch Anya, to say something stupid just so she can see the ghost of a smile touch her mouth and light up her eyes.

Then again, she’s still mourning Finn and she doesn’t know if she can risk getting her heart caught up in someone again. 

It’s too late, the voice in the back of her head reminds herself.

She’s been impatiently waiting Anya’s return all afternoon, she can’t deny it. 

“Took you long enough,” Raven finally manages to spit out with enough sarcasm, ennui, and accompanying eye roll that Anya claps her on the shoulder.

“Had to make sure you had time to finish your little project _commander of boom_.”

Raven winces at Anya’s touch as pain shoots down her back, and she leans heavily onto her crutch. She tries to swallow it down, not wanting to be seen as weak. She doesn’t miss the way Anya’s gaze flicks over her, checking for signs of further injury.

Anya narrows her eyes, “You didn’t rest today.”

Raven shrugs and turns to start walking toward Lexa’s tent, “Someone was late getting back and pushed back my final meeting of the day.”

In reality it’s more leaning on her crutch and half hopping half dragging herself along. Until she can find something to form a proper brace out of she’s stuck like this. The further away she gets from the surgery the more she realizes this may be as good as it gets.

She’s surprised when Anya doesn’t shoot a scathing comment back but instead takes Raven’s crutch and wraps Raven’s arm around her shoulders, even though Anya is slightly taller. Anya wraps an arm around Raven’s waist and grunts when she straightens up. She’s practically carrying her instead of just supporting her as they continue on toward Lexa’s tent and their meeting with Lexa and Clarke and Abby and Kane and Gustus.

Raven doesn’t complain about being half-carried and instead leans into Anya, her exhaustion and pain finally winning out now that Anya is back and safe. She’ll think about what this all means in the morning, but really, she knows. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows.


	2. Chapter 2

The first light of dawn is just turn the sky pink and lavender instead of dark blue when the leaders of the skaikru and grounders come to an agreement about their attack that day on the mountain men, the plan to get their people back. 

It relies on the falling light of evening so they have the day to relax and prepare. If anyone could really relax before a battle. Clarke, Lexa, Raven, and Anya are sunk low in their chairs around the war table, half asleep where they sit even though beds and furs wait for them.

“We should all rest before this afternoon,” Lexa’s voice is rough from talking all night.

Raven watches Anya who nods and stands as Lexa does. Though she’s injured from her scouting mission and hasn’t rested in more than a day she seems the same as ever, unphased by physical discomfort. Raven wishes she has the same ability, knowing as soon as she moves her pain will sky rocket.

Lexa clasps Anya’s shoulder, “Go back to your tent before you collapse, I need my general today.”

Anya nods once but her gaze flicks to Raven who has yet to move. She doesn’t want her lack of movement to become an issue, either because of her injury or because Anya was waiting for her. She clenches her teeth and presses her weighting into the table as she tries to stand. Taking her weight into her arms puts her in as much pain as trying to stand normally would have and she can’t help but gasp and grimace. 

Clarke, who hadn’t moved yet, is at her side, moving the chair out of her way, arms wrapping gently around Raven to support her. She wants to pull away, hobble back to her tent no matter what kind of pain it puts her in. Anything so she doesn’t have to rely on someone else.

“Raven,” Clarke whispers. The sound of her name carrying all the worry in the world. “Promise me you’ll spend the day resting, _on your back._ ” Clarke helps Raven lean down against the table so she can take a look at her back, make sure the incision is still healing as it should. 

Clarke’s hands are cold on her skin. That isn’t good. Heat means inflammation or infection. She hopes for the former, the latter could be deadly down here on the ground. As much pain as she’s in, she isn’t ready to die yet.

She hears footsteps, both Anya and Lexa have moved. Raven grunts and stands up as straight as she can. It’s a sharp shooting pain along the length of her body but her white knuckled grip on the table keeps her upright. She doesn’t want to be seen as weak. She doesn’t want to be helpless in front of Lexa and Anya. She realizes had it been anyone else other than Clarke that she wouldn’t have allowed the humiliation of the overwhelming pain to result in a quick medical examination on the war table.

“I’ll ensure she goes to her tent,” Anya nods to Clarke.

“I need to stop by the workshop and see what kind of progress Jasper has made,” Raven breathes out and starts to think about taking a step away from the table and finding her crutch. She looks around the room as best she can without moving and spots it strapped along with Anya’s sword to her back. “I still have preparations to make for this afternoon.”

Raven takes a tiny step away from the table and when she doesn’t fall she considers it a small victory.

“I’ll have one of my men oversee the remainder of the project,” Lexa steps in front of Raven, quiet and sure, but Raven knows her well enough to see that Lexa has let go of the mantle of commander with just the four of them in the tent. She’s just a girl like the rest of them trying to keep everyone alive. It’s comforting and terrifying all at once. Raven wishes Lexa were still aloof and mysteriously powerful but she lost that inhuman quality the first time she heard the girl commander laugh softly at something a sleep drunk Clarke had muttered, the same way Anya had when she had dubbed Raven _commander of boom_  with a smirk on her lips and a glittering mischievousness in her eyes.

“I’m certain they can manage distribution,” Lexa continues and Raven swears she sees Lexa wink at her.

Raven takes another step and lets out the breath she’s holding. Still standing. She’s been standing for too long, awake for too long, all she wants is to collapse into bed. “If you’re certain.”  

“I am,” Lexa smiles softly. “I need my commander of boom tonight.”

Raven shakes her head with a roll of her eyes and gives Lexa a mock salute. “Of course _heda_.”

“After all this is done, and we rescue them, you're going to let my mother look at your back again. I’m worried about that swelling.” Clarke squeezes Raven’s arm like she’d make her go now if they didn’t need her tonight. 

“No worries, princess, nothing I can’t handle.”

Raven is almost to the door of Lexa’s tent, which is much further than she remembers it being when she steps wrong and the ground comes rushing up to her, but it never hits her. Instead strong lithe arms wrap around her and catch her up like she’s a small child. Anya caught her.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. Put me down.” Raven protests despite the fact that being held feels nice and her back isn’t strained. Anya looks to Clarke and Lexa, ignoring Raven’s pleas. “Anya. Put. Me. Down.”

“Hush,” Anya mutters at her. “Your stubbornness is astounding.”

“I’ll help her to her tent and then find my way to mine,” Clarke starts to reach for Raven, set her on her feet again, and walk slowly… very slowly. The thought of trying to walk across camp, even though her tent isn’t actually across camp, just a few tents down, is daunting. It would be mid-afternoon before she made it.

“You stay here skaigirl,” Anya’s gaze flicks to Lexa. “We all know you rest better when heda is there to make you. I’ll make sure this one does.”

Raven’s given up on protesting and as collapsed against Anya’s chest and shoulder. She’s warm, even though her furs, and Raven’s head is heavy, and for the first time since sometime yesterday the pressure on her sacrum is gone. Even with the extensive tight muscles and ache, without the sharp shooting nerve pain her eyes are instantly heavy, as if she might fall asleep before Anya reaches Raven’s tent.

Clarke’s voice sounds far away when she responds, “I think you have that backwards.”

Raven almost doesn’t care if someone sees Anya carry her through camp. Not with the gentle assurance that Anya is alive, her heart beating beneath Raven’s hand, and her pulse gently tickling Raven’s nose. Raven doesn’t want to think about why she wants this comfort.

Lexa makes a noise that sounds like exasperated annoyance at Clarke’s comment, and Raven smiles at the thought of Lexa’s eyeroll. 

Anya shifts Raven in her arms and she feels Anya’s breath ghost across her cheek. She hears the tent flaps open and then the light on the other side of her eyelids is lighter. Anya’s gait is quiet and smooth and Raven barely shifts at all in her arms as they make their way through camp.

There are the sounds of early morning risers, but Raven is past caring. She’ll deal with anyone that has anything to say when she has energy again.

Anya slips into Raven’s tent and sets Raven gently on the edge of her bed. Raven starts to take off her jacket, intending to undress but trying to twist to undress sends pain shooting along her spine. Anya kneels in front of Raven a knowing I told you so look on her face.

Raven frowns and grumbles but nods at Anya thankful that she at least doesn’t have to verbalize the humiliation.

Anya’s hands are gentler than she expected though she works deftly. Raven can hardly protest even as Anya strips her of her pants and shirt, or when Anya cradles her close again to toss aside the furs on the bed and lay her down gently again in the middle because she manages to do so without sending the shooting pain throughout Raven’s body. 

Laying down the pain in her back fades to an ache.

She tries to tell herself that it’s because she’s in less pain than she’s been in hours and that’s why she reaches for Anya’s hand, that it’s just her being grateful and groggy enough to allow herself to do anything about it. With all the energy she has left she tugs until she feels Anya yield. She knows there’s no way she pulled Anya toward her, she knows Anya is humoring her because she’s in pain and exhausted.

“Stay,” the word scrapes across the back of her throat. She doesn’t have the energy to regret it.

Raven barely has time to enjoy the sound of clothes and weapons hitting the ground before the bed sinks next to her and the feeling of a warm body clad only in underthings presses close to her before she passes out.

Her last conscious thought is Anya’s thumb brushing across her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we start looking at how we got here. how did raven and anya get to the point where raven would let anya carry her, let her hold her while she slept? and yet still deny her feelings...

When Raven wakes the bed is empty and her entire body is a singular strained muscle too tight to stretch out. She groans and manages to roll over toward the edge of the bed. It’s still warm and she wonders how long ago Anya left, wonders why she left.

She knows why.

It’s easier this way.

This morning Raven was in pain and exhausted and Anya is kind. They’re friends, weird friends that push each other and make fun of each other and challenge each other… but friends.

Raven tries to stretch but she’s too tangled up in the furs. Every move is one she regrets but she continues fighting her way to sitting, they’ve got friends to rescue today, ones fighting bigger fights than untangling themselves from furs and figuring out how to stand up.

Her tent flap snaps open and Anya ducks back inside, “We’re leaving in ten.”

Raven curses internally and lets her head loll back, “You could have woken me.”

“You were snoring. It was…” Anya pauses and looks at Raven with a strange mixture of softness and contempt and amusement.

Raven reaches for her shirt and tilts her head to the side, one eyebrow arched high. “I was what?” she pulls the shirt over her head and scoots further along the edge of her bed to reach for her pants.

Anya opens her mouth and snaps it shut again. She stretches her lower jaw to one side like she’s overthinking, something she’s vaguely annoyed about. “Nothing.”

Pants half on Raven lays back on the bed and arches her back as best she can to slip them on. The pain isn’t as bad as the night before but her back is stiff and there’s a dull persistent ache that’s only going to get worse when she stands up.

She can stand up though. She can walk. It’s more than Abby promised her. Raven watches Anya in her periphery. The grounder general has been there, just on the edges since the beginning practically.

 

 

_Skaikru Camp  
_ _One Month Ago_

 

Raven had just collapsed in her own bed in her own tent for the first time in weeks when she heard the gunshot. She hadn’t had the energy to get back up until the chaos resolved outside and it was clear that Clarke was back and she had someone with her. Someone the jittery trigger happy arkers had shot.

She hears Abby yell that they nearly shot Clarke.

Coat, brace, crutches. She finds her way back to her feet feeling raw, but she’s on her feet and that’s a small miracle.

It's a huge fucking miracle.

She can barely move, only having just been released by Abby from the medical bay. Her incision is still red and threatening to pull open and most of her backside is a giant bruise that gets worse by the day. Her leg is a strange combination of numb and pain that she doesn't know if she'll ever get used to.

Raven pushes open the tent flaps and steps back out into the dark. Her arms tremble with the effort it takes to move using the crutches, her leg dragging because she can't even lift it right now.

“Abby!” Raven calls, she can just make out blonde hair in the dim light of the camp.

She half turns, calling over her shoulder, “I have to get this women into surgery so unless you've been shot again it'll have to wait.”

Raven slows the frenzied pace she's been trying to move at. It really wasn't that fast but it was sending sharp shocks through her body. She grunts and pauses, stretching out her low back before finding the will to keep moving. Clarke. She has to keep moving to find Clarke.

When she looks up again there's a muddy figure in front of her flanked by two of Abby’s medical staff.

“You're up,” Clarke's voice is rough and tired.

Raven’s heart feels like it might break through her chest. She feels her mouth open but no sound goes out. If she hadn't been relying on her crutches to be upright at all she would drop them and hug Clarke mud and all. “You're alive,”she whispers.

“Yeah,” Clarke nods and smiles.

Raven lets go of her crutches and takes a half step that sends her crashing into Clarke. She has a hundred questions and no idea where to start. Clarke stumbles and they both nearly tumble to the ground. Tightening her arms Raven decides she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care if they fall. They’re broken but they’re alive, their hearts may be broken but they have their friendship as strange as it is. Clarke hugs her back, holds her up, neither move to let go even though they’ve drawn a small crowd.

They’re alive. They’re alive. They’re alive.

The words echo through Raven’s head and press tears into the corner of her eyes.

Raven spends the night in the medical bay despite Abby telling her to go back to her tent and get some reset because Clarke needs to sleep. Like hell if she’s leaving. Clarke is her friend, and more importantly the fact that she’s alive means the others might be too. So Raven ignores the pain in her back and cleans herself up and helps Clarke as much she can until the other girl passes out. After that she sleeps fitfully, sitting up in a chair between Clarke’s bed and the blonde grounder. She’s going to regret it but Abby told her to leave and she decided she wouldn’t.

It’s barely morning when Raven gives up on trying to sleep. The grounder, dirt and paint washed away looks like any one of them might. They’re all just… human. The grounder is sweating, forehead just barely damp. Abby had said she might be in low level shock, that she needed fluids. Grumbling Raven stumbles to her feet, leaving heavily on her crutches as she crosses the room to get water and a cloth.

It takes her longer than she thinks it will as she collapses back into the chair. She starts with mopping the woman’s brow. If she wakes she’ll try to get her to drink.

Only a few moments pass before the grounder snatches at her wrist but her grip is weak. The fierceness in her eyes is clouded with pain.

“You’ll be okay,” Raven finds herself saying softly. “I got shot too, but Abby had me up and walking in no time.” She untangles long fingers from around her forearm and continues to press a damp cloth to the other woman’s forehead. “I mean, it sucks, hurts like a mother fucker, but it’s survivable. We need to get some fluids in you though.”

The grounder grunts and looks away from Raven unable to move fully.

“If you want a better chance at survival, you’ll drink some water.”

Slowly, deep dark brown eyes focus back on her and the woman gives the barest of nods. Raven rolls her eyes realizing this is all the more permission she’s going to get. She grabs another pillow and helps the woman sit up just enough so she can shove the pillow behind her head. Holding the glass to her lips Raven tips the glass slowly, it’s terribly awkward trying to help someone drink while simultaneously trying not to dump water all over them. Half the glass goes down and the grounder meets Raven’s gaze again.

“Who shot you?”

Raven laughs and grimaces with it. “One of my own.”

“You’re all no better than _maunon._ ” She spits.

“Murphy’s just an asshole.”

“He really is,” Clarke squeezes Raven’s shoulder as she comes up behind her. “How are you feeling Anya?”

“Like I got shot by _skaikru_.” Anya glares.

Clarke chokes down a laugh and Raven registers the sarcasm in Anya’s voice as thin and angry as it is.

“Anya, huh?” She says as she leans against Clarke who has sat down next to her. “I’m Raven.”

It hits her then. The bridge. Without the warpaint she looks younger, but no less fierce and angular. Her looks are as sharp as her wit. Raven swallows thickly, guilt welling up in her gut. It’s her fault Anya lost her second. All her intelligence and it’s just been used to kill others. To keep them alive. She looks down at the warrior beside her knowing she’s killed to keep her own safe.

“Not the first time I’ve been shot by one of you,” Anya rasps, her eyes fluttering closed, as sleep pulls her back under. Somehow Raven knows that Anya knows she’s the one who built the bomb.

“Hopefully the last,” Raven whispers.

Clarke takes the damp cloth from Raven’s still hands and drops it into the bucket of scraps to be cleaned. She nudges Raven and offers up a hand to pull her to her feet. “Come on, we have a lot to talk about, and you’re one of the few people here I trust.”

“And her?”

“Tentatively. She’s going to take us to her Commander so that we can discuss a truce.”

“Even after we shot her… again.”

“I’ve also saved her life twice now. Something tells me that means something to these people.”


	4. Chapter 4

The afternoon light wanes and the air is cold against Raven’s face. She blinks rapidly in the light as her eyes adjust, her tent had been dim, so much dimmer than this. Or maybe she's just tired. It pulls at the edges of her mind like the the pain that's become a constant in her life. It isn't just her back, it's… everything.

She stops walking and leans on her left crutch, a tripod balance between her good leg, her bad one, and the crutch, as she rubs at her nose and eyes. Tonight they get everyone back but they risk losing everything including the one grounder that can keep the rest from killing them outright. Today is not the day to have doubts.

“Come on boom girl,” Anya calls.

Raven looks up to see Anya stopped a few paces ahead of her, just the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.She rolls her eyes and starts moving again, letting her leg drag. It’s easier than trying to walk like she should, faster too. Even if Abby says it’ll make things worse if she doesn’t try to walk properly, that she might never, she can’t stand the slow plodding. She needs a better brace before she tries to walk again. She doesn’t want to face the failure.

“Getting shot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Raven tries to joke as she passes Anya and they fall into place beside each other.

“Battle scars mean you survived.” Anya says, her tone serious and almost reverent. “Scars like yours mean you’re a fierce warrior.”

“I was shot in the back by my friend.” Familiar self doubt wraps around her.

“And then you saved your people with a bullet lodged in your spine.”

Anya never lets her wallow in her self doubt, doesn’t stand for when it slips into self pity. It’s infuriating sometimes, but every so often it’s appreciated, the reminder that she’s still worthwhile, that as a friend, as a member of her clan, that she’s needed. Back on the Ark she fought long and hard to be seen, to be needed, to be something beyond a meal ticket. She wanted to prove that she was important so that someone else would see it. Still, sometimes she doubts it’s true.

She knows better than to argue with Anya though. Especially when Anya’s about to take off on a rescue mission. Raven wants to go with the rescue party, wants to be there to bring their friends back but she knows she’d be more of a hindrance than a help. Her leg is still too weak and she’s too slow moving to be of any use in a combat situation. At the very least no one has pretended she is staying behind for any reason other than her leg, though Lexa had talked to her privately expressing that she wouldn’t want Raven out there anyway. They couldn’t afford to lose her knowledge even if her explosions expertise would be useful on the battlefield. Raven could easily teach people how and where to place bombs but, as Lexa had pointed out, they had no one as willing or as skilled with making them, and no time to teach anyone to be a master. Raven alone was the commander of boom.

Raven is to stay behind manning a radio. Caris, who had been injured in an early skirmish between the Trikru and _Skaikru_ , would help her with orders for the grounders still learning English.

Worry ties itself around Raven’s gut. There are too many lives at stake today. Either they will come out of this victorious or not at all. The worry pushes at everything in her until she doesn’t even notice the pain in her back and leg. Pain becomes no more than background noise when faced with losing her remaining friends. Both sides have already lost too many.

She pauses toward the back of the crowd, not keen to press through the bodies and risk being knocked over. Their friends are likely on the other side of the throng, and she knows, that as Lexa’s general, that’s where Anya needs to be.

The last thing Raven wants to do is to say goodbye.

“Why are you stopping?” Anya turns, having already walked several paces past Raven. “The others are near Heda’s tent.”

Raven swallows thickly, she also doesn’t want to admit to her fear of being knocked over. “Didn’t want to trip anyone with my crutches.”

“Do you require me to carry you again?”

Raven almost misses Anya wink at her, and Raven’s cheeks flush. “I require no such thing. So are you clearing me a path or am I taking the long way around?” There are hundreds of grounders gathered and it would take her the better part of a half hour to find the edges where she could make her way to the other side.

After the second culling of the grounders and _Skaikru_ by the _Maunon,_ reinforcements had begun to arrive from tribes far from the terror of the mountain. Lexa’s people had answered the call carried by her riders. They had a common enemy in those that lived underground in sealed spaces, those that still used guns.

It’s a small flicker of hope, half of the twelve tribes were represented to help the _Trikru_ recover their lost brethren. There were grumblings though about helping the _Skaikru_ rescue theirs. No one would say for certain, but another station may have landed further out. There may have been survivors. They may not have found a way to come to an understanding, even a shaky truce like Raven and the others had. The hundred had Clarke, any other station may not have someone willing to try.

For as much death as the grounders had brought them the _Skaikru_ had dealt an equal amount back. They were even. Blood must have blood and all that. It was the _Maunon_ that worried Raven. They had no such honor.

 

_Just outside Lexa’s camp_

_27 days before_

 

Raven woke in the middle of the night to screams.

It was supposed to be safe in the camp. They weresurrounded by guards, grounders and _Skaikru_ alike. They had scouts posted around the mountain, and still, the camp woke to screams.

The _Skaikru_ had woken that is a thin bluish mist in the air. Each of the grounders, save Lexa, whose shouts could be heard now over the screams of the _Skaikru_ , were dead asleep, unable to be woken.

Raven opens her eyes to Clarke’s hand over her mouth as the blonde hovers over her, blue eyes alert and scanning the scene through the thin slit in their tent just above the bed they share. With most of the original hundred and many the arkers from the station that survived joining them in the camp they had trouble finding enough space for everyone to sleep. And given that neither Clarke nor Raven wanted Finn to approach them with an offer of bunking together they had condensed their meager belongings into space barely meant for one.

Curling her fingers around Clarke’s hand she pulls it off her mouth and sits up. Another scream goes up, but it’s cut short.

“ _Maunon_ ,” Clarke hisses.

“Killing or taking?” Raven asks.

“Both.”

This is the second time the _Skaikru_ have been attacked by the _Maunon_ , the second time they’ve been stolen in the night and killed, or worse, taken to the mountain to become test subjects. Last time they took Clarke.

Raven groans as she sits up and Clarke gives her a wide-eyed look. She rolls her eyes and snaps her mouth shut. Slowly shifting onto her knees she grimaces as her back muscles tighten and spasm. It’s only been a few days since Clarke returned and only a few more since her surgery and she’s not had nearly enough rest after far too many hours on her feet. She leans into Clarke as she peers out the hole in their tent at the situation beyond.

In the center of the camp is a pile of their friends and comrades. Some are unconscious, some bleeding, some huddling and trying to protect those that need protecting. There are _Maunon_ with guns keeping the captives in place and the _Skaikru_ still trying to fight and save their friends at bay.

The clash of swords and the crack of guns echoes from the other side of the camp. Raven hopes that’s where Lexa is. In the past two days they’ve forged a shaky alliance with the girl commander. That they saved Anya seems to be seen as a great favor. She’s the general for the twelve clans, every bit as fearsome as she tries to make herself, though Raven has seen her nearly smile and knows she’s just as young as they are. And yet, somehow Lexa and Anya understand this terrifying world and know how to survive it.

Clarke jumps out of the bed and Raven nearly collapses, not realizing how much she was relying on Clarke to stay upright.

“Where are you going?”

“To help save them.”

“They have guns, and we don’t know what that blue fog is.”

“If it were going to kill us or knock us out it already would have,” Clarke says as she pulls on her pants and shoes. “I’m going to find Lexa and see what we can do. Without the grounders we don’t have enough warriors in this camp to fight of the _Maunon_.”

Raven struggles to move as quickly as she wants to be and barely makes it to her feet. “You aren’t getting captured again.”

“I don’t plan on it.” Clarke tugs Raven into a tight hug and lets her go with a soft shove that sends her sprawling back onto the bed. “Now stay here.”

Clarke slips out the back of the tent and Raven slams her fist against the mattress. Tears sting her eyes out of frustration. The pain is nothing compared to the uselessness she feels. She can barely move. By the time she’s dressed again she hears the roar of an engine and peeks out of the tent to see trucks roll into the camp. She grips the canvas of the tent to keep her upright as fear chokes her.

The _Maunon_ start herding those they’ve corralled onto the trucks, not caring if they injure them. People are packed so tight they’re on top of one another, trying not to step on the unconscious but having nowhere to go. It’s happening again. Everything goes down too quickly for Raven to react. She clings to the canvas and watches in horror.

Lexa bursts into the clearing and skids to halt as she comes face to face with the barrel of a gun. Even from this far away Raven can make out the snarl on her lips. The _Maunon_ , the one with the gun in Lexa’s face, signals to load up the trucks until they’re full. The doors close and all but one takes off. The kidnappers start to back up and a war cry goes up, not from them, but from the near side of the clearing. Finn runs in, gun in hand, Clarke is half a step behind him, reaching for him. A gun goes off and Clarke ducks; Finn hits the ground.

Raven screams.

The last truck takes off as Raven stumbles across the clearing and collapses to the ground next to Finn’s side. His blood is black in the moonlight, he’s eyes glassy and unseeing. Air bubbles gurgle in the opening of his chest. Raven pleads, hands covering the wound only to pull back knowing she can’t save him. Nothing could save him. His chest is half gone. She can barely see through her tears and she drops her head to his shoulder.

Clarke’s hand is on her shoulder and she tries to shrug it off, but Clarke just wraps her arms around her more securely. “I’m sorry, Raven,” she whispers. “I tried to talk him out of running out with the gun.”

“No.” The word comes out like a litany. She may have been angry with him, unable to forgive him, but she had loved him deeply once. He had been her family.

Finn sucks in a breath that sounds like he’s breathing in blood more than air. He chokes, and cries out in pain.

Raven lets Clarke pull her back up to sitting, arms wrapped firmly around her, refusing to let her go. Covered in Finn’s blood she turns to Clarke, hiding against her as if she could escape the moment by crawling into her friends arms. As if being held would make it easier to breathe.

It doesn’t.

“End it, he’s going to die. Just end it.”

Still, Raven doesn’t leave the circle of Clarke’s arms.

The sound of Finn’s breathing is thick and wet and slow. Raven feels Clarke shift and hears the sharp snick of a blade being drawn from leather. Finn makes a strangled sound and then goes silent. Raven feels Clarke shaking in her arms and she clings as tightly to her as she can until she isn’t sure who is holding whom.

The night is cold and silent around them. Only a few remain that are alive and awake, the grounders still deep in a drugged sleep. Even filled with pain and fear she wonders for a moment who is left, if Anya was taken again, or if she’s still safe in her tent. Raven’s tears become a sob that shakes her body. Finn, gone… dead. More of their friends kidnapped, and now their allies are thinned as well. Her heart feels like it’s been ripped from her chest. The only thing keeping her from falling to pieces is Clarke.

Footsteps crunch on the rocky ground and Raven grips Clarke tight for a moment until she looks up to see Lexa standing over them. She nudges Clarke to indicate the Commander’s presence and they untangle enough so that they can both look up at Lexa. Clarke’s face is streaked with tears and in an instant Raven can’t swallow past the guilt gripping at her throat because she asked Clarke to end Finn’s life so she didn’t have to listen to him suffer through his last breaths. She slides to her knees and pulls Clarke to her, pressing Clarke’s head to her chest. One of Clarke’s hands wraps around her arm, gripping her tightly. Maybe they’ll survive they ground if they can stick together.

“He will be given a warrior’s funeral.” Lexa’s gaze flicks from them to Finn’s body. “The _Maunon_ left behind many of those they meant to take. He saved lives.” There’s blood running down Lexa’s face and her words are almost emotionless. Raven would swear though that she sees a flicker of hurt in Lexa’s eyes as she stands over them looking out into the woods after their stolen comrades.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may eventually get on a posting schedule for this fic... but for now it's whenever I manage to get a chapter done in between finishing up _And Four Makes Home_ and my other writing projects.

Octavia meets them halfway through the crowd of rallied grounders and _skaikru_. She looks halfway between the two people: fierce, terrifying and yet still somehow naïve. Her gloved hand wraps arounds Raven’s shoulder.

“ _Heda_ is expecting you. She wants a final audience before the march starts.”

Anya glances at Octavia and nods once, “Is there a clearer path?”

Octavia answers by motioning for them to follow, acting instead of wasting time with words. She’s never been one for talking when it’s easier and faster to just get something done. She ducks into a supply tent and out the back, looping around the amassed grounders by moving them through the camp instead of the clearing. Octavia moves faster than Anya had been. She’s been antsy and impatient since the second culling, since the _Maunon_ took Lincoln.

Lexa’s voice echoes on the other side of the tent.

Raven limps forward, catching up with Octavia and grabs her by the arm. Octavia spins halfway to an attack before she relaxes, her hands falling to her sides, and her expression with it. Raven shakes her head. “O,” she whispers. And it’s all she gets out before Octavia’s eyes are glassy and she’s pulling Raven in for a hug. It’s bone crushing and intense like everything about the girl.

Octavia rests her forehead against Raven’s, “Stay safe today. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I’ll be safe as can be from the back lines,” Raven tries to joke but it falls flat.

“You know as well as I do that once they realize our forces have moved they may make a play for the camp, leave us nowhere to retreat to.” Octavia grips the back of Raven’s head as she whispers, holding them together.

Raven claps Octavia on the shoulder and they pull apart. “Come on now, I’m the Commander of Boom, ain’t no one getting near me.”

Anya clears her throat.

“ _Gona_ ,” Lexa says cooly addressing them both. Gone is the girl from that morning, hidden underneath several layers of kohl, a shoulder guard, and a red sash. She seems taller, more imposing, as if she could snap any of them in half without breaking a sweat. “Octavia, you’ll be with Indra, dispatch any scouts directly to me with updates.”

“ _Sha, Heda_.” Octavia dips her head. She turns and clasps Raven’s forearm briefly and too tight as if she’s worried it will be the last time. “May we meet again,” she whispers.

“May we meet again,” Raven echoes, the words catching in her throat.

Octavia pulls Clarke into a hug as they nearly collide in the doorway to the tent before she runs off.

“Raven,” Lexa turns back. “Anya tells me you’re doing better this morning.”

“I’m up and that’s always a good day,” Raven nods. “I know you didn’t call me up here just to see how I was, so what is it that you need.”

Clarke steps up beside Lexa, her voice quiet as to not be heard outside the tent, “We need to go over the plan for the bombs incase the radios fail. Lexa and I need to be able to relay the orders, or go in ourselves to set the charges, if something goes wrong.”

“If something goes wrong, just chuck the bombs at the turbines and run!” Raven hisses. As much as she trusts she knows what she’s doing Raven doesn’t always trust the materials she has on hand, and the last thing she wants to do is to be responsible for either of their deaths. “If you bring me with you I can use a short wave radio with whoever is placing the charges, we won’t lose contact, and we won’t risk either of your lives.”

“But you find it acceptable to risk your own?” Lexa raises a kohl black eyebrow.

Raven dips her gaze, not wanting to think about the truth. She looks up to find Anya’s eyes on her and guilt wraps around her heart. All she wants out of today is to not burn any more people she cares about on a funeral pyre. She doesn’t understand when they all started mattering so much to her, when she has reason to be angry with everyone there. That’s the last thing she is though, because her friends are the only reason she’s survived this long on the ground.

Raven squares her shoulders. Her jaw clenches as Anya refuses to look away. Things are changing between them and they don’t have time for it right now. Raven unsheaths the dagger she keeps in her brace and kneels to the ground with a small grunt, starting to draw in the dirt with the tip of the blade, “This is where the charges need to be placed…”

 

 

_Lexa’s Camp_

_26 days before_

 

There’s a hollow well in her chest that Raven can’t quite breath around. It keeps growing exponentially larger with each passing moment. She and Clarke had allowed themselves a few scant moments to mourn and then they had untangled heavy limbs clumsy with grief and the receding rush of adrenaline.

For now there was calm.

The quiet just echoes in Raven’s head. There’s a void between her and reality, but still, she helps Clarke and Lexa tend to the wounded. The _Maunon_ left behind more people than she expected. Perhaps Finn did save some of them with his stupid heroics. He was always doing stupid things to save people. Her hand flies to her chest as she feels an echoing thud in the hollow of her chest. She leans against the table where she’s sorting through medical supplies.

Now that they’ve done what they can for the worst of their wounded they’re trying to asses what they have and who they can save without either of their healers– both Abby and Nyko had been taken in the second culling.

Raven shakes her head and pushes her feelings into the void where she can’t feel them and they can’t torment her. There’s no time for mourning now. Lexa needs their help to revive the remaining grounders and rally allies to build a rescue. Every moment of quiet is one that could be interrupted by the _Maunon_ coming back for those they left alive.

“He died a good death.” Anya interrupts Raven’s thoughts, her voice is quiet but there’s an edge of pain to it.

Raven balks, the words register but her reaction feels far away, still it twists her gut. “How can you say that? No death is good.”

Anya dips her head, it almost seems like an apology as her gaze drops to the floor and her head bobs. “ _Skaikru_ are not accustomed to death the way we are. You die because you are sick or old.” She pauses and starts to sort the supplies on the table with Raven almost as an afterthought, as if she came over to talk but didn’t want her actions to be read any certain way. “He died trying to save people. There is honor in that.”

“He died because he’s an idiot,” Raven throws the roll of gauze she’s handling down hard and it bounces across the table. Anya catches it before it hits the floor and sets it gently in a box with the rest of the gauze.

“I never meant to imply he made wise decisions, just, honorable ones.”

Raven’s head snaps up anger flaring to life. She can feel it and it burns. She can feel and she wishes she was back in the void because the pain is worse than any in her body. Her hands grip the table until her knuckles turn white. Just as she’s about to lash out she sees a mischievous crinkle at the corner of Anya’s eyes; the grounder isn’t quite smiling but it’s clear she meant the words in jest and not out of malice. There’s mirth in them. Raven purses her lips, annoyed that she’s flipped from angry to amused so quickly.

Of all the people left in the grounder camp she didn’t expect Anya to try to offer her any sort of comfort.

“He never was one to think out his plans.” He had once sacrificed himself for her, ending up in lockup and then down on Earth… and now he’ll return to the earth once more.

Anya makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a cough that Raven realizes is her trying not to laugh. Raven tosses an ace bandage at Anya and mock glares. Anya catches the bandage easily and tosses it into the appropriate bin.

“Listen, I know he is- was an idiot, but he was my idiot at one point.” Raven sighs heavily. For a few moments at least she didn’t feel like she was being consumed by the void in her chest.

“You’re the one who said it.” A smile almost twitches at the corner of Anya’s mouth.

It flashes through her mind then, wondering what that smile would look like full out. If the rich brown of Anya’s eyes glowed when she was happy. If she ever was happy… Raven had never seen the warrior relax, not even when she was still in the med bay under Abby’s watch. Truth be told, she should still be back in the med bay, the bullet hole in her side only a few days into healing.

Raven shakes her head and lets out a half hearted laugh. It feels strange, like laughter is something that shouldn’t be able to exist, as if the deaths and the kidnappings took away their right to feel anything but pain and sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [my tumblr inbox is always open, feel free to hit me up with reactions or ask me questions](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com/ask)


	6. Chapter 6

Raven scuffs out the sketches with the toe of her boot. There’s nothing more she could say to explain where the charges would need to be set without having eyes on the turbines. She leans on her crutches an continues to kick at the dirt. Now that she’s done talking there’s nothing left that needs to be said about this mission and nothing keeping them from leaving. Lexa and Clarke and Anya need to leave soon if the plan is to work.

The last thing Raven wants is to be left behind, but she has no choice.

Lexa reaches out her hand and Raven mimics the gesture, hand firm around Lexa’s forearm.

“Caris should be with the radios already. We’ll do our best to keep quiet as long as possible so that they do not… jam the lines.” The phrase sounds strange on Lexa’s tongue like the words are foreign.

Raven exhales through her nose, it’s almost a laugh, “I’ll give the all clear as quickly as I can.” She nods, knowing that their success hinges on timing everything tonight. “ _Ste klir.”_

Lexa nods curtly and steps back.

Clarke gives no such pretense of formality as she nearly knocks Raven over with a hug. Raven clings to Clarke, partially to keep upright and partially because she needs this too. For no explicable reason they have chosen each other as their person, the one friend they trust with the truth when it matters the most. Raven presses her face into blonde hair and breathes through the tears threatening to form.

They pull apart slowly, arms relaxing, picking up their heads off each other’s shoulders, holding each other at arms length and then, when they can’t delay it any longer, they let go.

“Don’t get blown up,” Raven quips.

“That’s my line,” a smile tugs at the corner of Clarke’s mouth, hope, and love, and trust, and all the things it doesn’t feel like they should have on the ground. “Stay safe.”

And like that, Clarke ducks out of the tent; Lexa follows.

More of her friends off to battle, which leaves Anya.

Raven shoves a hand deep into one of her pockets and leans heavily on her other crutch, swaying slightly, balancing precariously, not knowing what she should say or if she should even try to say anything at all. There’s almost too much that has gone unsaid between them to bring any of it up at all could distract them and put them in danger. It would kill her if she were a distraction the reason Anya didn’t make it back alive.

She scuffs the toe of her boot in the dirt where her drawing had been. It’s easier to focus there than on Anya who still hasn’t moved and is still watching her.

The tip of a grounder boot knocks against hers. Raven hadn’t heard Anya move. She looks up, they’re close enough now that Raven can almost feel her just beyond the edges of her skin like a beacon of warmth, as if, at this proximity the electrons bouncing around her own atoms agitate, becoming so excited at the prospect of bouncing into Anya’s that the air between them warms with it.

There’s an inexplicable pull between them and no time to answer it.

Anya fixes Raven with one of her stares, the one that bores into her soul and turns her inside out. The one that makes her want to bend and break and spill the truth that’s sleeping on the tip of her tongue.

Instead Raven glances away again not sure what to say when she can’t say what she wants.

“We’ll be back before morning,” Anya says evenly as if they’re simply going out gathering and not deep into enemy territory.

Raven wants to ask how she can be so certain and beg her to promise because there's nothing she wants more in that moment than to know they will all come back alive. She forces herself to look back at Anya even though she knows it will break the resolve she feels.

Anya’s face is soft beneath the black kohl. There's a caring and yearning that Raven has only seen in fleeting moments. Anya is as close to that edge as she is.

And yet there's too much at stake for them to give in, too many questions unanswered, too many sins and debts unanswered.

Raven can barely speak for the hand around her heart, fingers curling against her throat. She doesn't want to say goodbye.

Holding out her arm she waits for Anya to return the gesture. “ _Oso hit choda op nodotaim,”_ she whispers.

Anya clasps Raven’s forearm, “May we meet again.”

They hold on just a moment too long. Anya’s grip is firm, just that side of too tight, then again, so is Raven's. Then Anya nods slightly and lets go, and she's out of the tent before Raven can react.

“ _Ste klir ,_ ” she whispers. “All of you, come home safe.”

 

 

 

_Lexa’s Camp_

_26 days before_

 

They’d burned the bodies that next day, mass funeral pyres, grounders and _Skaikru_ together as if they were the same. It’s safer to burn the bodies, no beasts that way coming in the night to dig up graves, no _ripa_ that way drawn by the stench of blood.

Raven had sat in rapt attention as Lexa explained to them what the _ripa_ were and how they were turned. Though she hadn’t been so engrossed that she missed the look exchanged between Clarke and Anya as Clarke had whispered _the tunnels_. Their escape from Mount Weather had taken them through the territory of more than one enemy.

There was still so much about the ground that the _Skaikru_ didn’t know and even more that they didn’t understand. Raven was infinitely frustrated that there was no time for them to learn, they just had to trust that the two cultures hadn’t drifted so far apart in the years since the ark was built that they didn’t accidentally ruin the tenuous truce with the grounders and get themselves all killed.

It had almost happened once, Raven wouldn’t be surprised if the arrogance of the _Skairkru_ proved to be their downfall.Half their people were already testing Lexa’s patience.

Lexa had no reason to allow them to live when they had killed countless warriors and innocents. The surviving _Skaikru_ were not fighters, as much as they tried to learn quickly, they had not been trained like the grounder warriors. Their numbers were small though, and they could easily be wiped out. The one thing they did have going for them was their mastery of technology, which made Raven one of their most valuable assets. Lexa, while wary of it, knew the importance of understanding _tek_.

Even delirious with pain and barely able to walk, Raven was the one they needed to succeed and for the hundred to survive the coming weeks.

In the six days since the second culling had happened they hadn’t heard a word from the _Maunon_. It was a relief but it was also worrisome.

Raven looks across her workbench, where she’s working to fix a set of walkie talkies, to Octavia, Gina, and Bellamy who are sorting scraps and trying to identify anything that might be useable. No one has spoken for the past hour and she can’t take the silence any longer. It’s the weight of their loss weighing down on them and if it continues she doesn’t know how she’ll get them through this.

“I wish we could contact someone on the inside,” Raven sets down the radio with a huff. “If we could just turn off that damned jamming signal maybe Monty’ll be able to broadcast or receive a missive. With Clarke gone and the others arriving having been kidnapped they have to know something is wrong by now.”

Gina tosses some copper wire into a bin, “Not if they’ve kept them separated. We know the grounders are separated from the _Skaikru_ that were taken.”

“They’re punishing us for aligning with the grounders,” Bellamy grumbles.

“No,” Octavia’s anger flares. “They’re killing anyone not _Maunon_ to save themselves, draining us for our blood and our resistance to radiation, and turning people into _ripa_.” She doesn’t bother to look up from the pile she’s sorting through.

“The Mountain men _are_ civilized,” Bellamy counters. “If we cut our ties with the grounders we could bargain with them, free our people.”

“Civilized how?” Raven asks warily. She doesn’t want to push this conversation any further knowing how much it will upset Octavia and Clarke if she heard, but also feeling the same pinch of disappointment in her gut. They can’t afford to be divided, not on this, not when so many lives are at stake.

“They are, Clarke said–“

“–Clarke said that they had people locked up in cages, like animals. The _Skaikru_ were only spared the same fate because somehow the _Maunon_ figured out our blood works better than everyone else’s. Living indoors and sleeping on a mattress doesn’t make a person civilized,” she spits. “It makes you privileged, that’s about it.” Octavia shoves herself back from the table and storms out of the tent, not waiting for a response.

Raven looks to Bellamy once more trying to suss him out. He’d do anything to keep his sister safe but his ethical compass is in need of a serious adjustment. They can’t risk splintering their group further, or losing more people to the ones that stayed behind, too angry and afraid to trust the help that was offered them.

When Lexa had agreed to the truce with Clarke there had been a split. Those left of the hundred that had not been captured by the _Maunon_ had followed Clarke and the promise of safety and rescue of their friends. As long as they were willing to help in the fight they had a place in Lexa’s camp, they had a purpose, and the protection it afforded. After it all settled they would discuss the return to Polis and what that meant for the _Skaikru_ who had no land and no claim on the ground. The Arkers had been more divided. While Kane and Abby had fought for a truce and understanding, as by all rights, everyone from the sky was an invader, Jaha argued that this land was theirs by ancestral right. Too man people had believed him.

Lexa had allowed the split as long as the Arkers that stayed behind remained within five kilometers of Arkadia. They were half a breath away from being removed from the _Skaikru_ but there was no clan, just a weak truce that no one had earned.

Beyond that border Lexa refused any protection for the Arkers.

And now, with the second culling, it wasn’t just Bellamy lashing out at the grounders or Lexa. Too many of the _Skaikru_ were saying the promise of protection was worthless.

Raven pushes down on the table and stands up, leaning across it to get in Bellamy’s face. “The _Maunon_ are killing us and killing them, and you think _they’re_ the civilized ones?”

Bellamy leans forward, getting right back in her face, close enough that she can see the black flecks in his brown eyes. “The grounders killed us.”

“And we killed them back!” Raven grimaces as she straightens up too quickly. “We look and talk like _Maunon_ – they had every right to fear us. We use _tek_ like _Maunon_.” She picks up the radio and tosses it onto the pile of junk.

“All that time you and Clarke spend with Lexa, you’re starting to sound like one of them.”

“Hold up,” Gina tries to put herself between them, despite the table being in the way. “Lexa at least has honor, we can trust her word. The _Maunon_ attacked us in our sleep and are holding our friends prisoner. There’s no way I’d trust them.”

“We can’t trust any of them.” Bellamy collapses back into his chair and runs his hands against his face. “It was a mistake to come to the ground.”

“We didn’t have a choice– and we still don’t.” Raven shuts her eyes and breathes out through her nose. “I’m going to go check on Octavia, make sure you haven’t pissed her off enough that she goes and does something stupid.”

Bending slowly, Raven reaches for her crutches which have fallen to the ground. All her weight is balanced on one leg, and her back tightens protectively around the muscles that haven’t healed at all. Abby will be furious if she rips out the sutures holding her together and Raven stops herself halfway down realizing she can’t move further without putting herself at risk for doing just that. She also can’t straighten up.

Gina is by her side before Raven can say anything, picking up the crutches and helping Raven stand back up. She knows Gina means well, and truth is she needed the help, but she can’t stomach it. The weakness is a knife twisting her gut. Raven’s lost, or is at risk of losing, everyone she cares about. She has to be able to take care of herself. On top of that she’s most of the reason that Lexa agreed to Clarke’s terms of the truce. The last thing she wants to be seen as is a liability or a weakness.

The grounders seem pretty keen on defeating anything perceived as weak.

“I’m fine,” Raven says through gritted teeth. She stops herself just short of actually pushing Gina away, but can’t stop herself from recoiling from the kindness of the touch.

“I was just–“

“I know,” Raven cuts her off; this isn’t a conversation she wants to have. “I know,” she says more softly as she arranges herself on her crutches. She waves a hand at the mess on the table, “I’ll be back in a little while to continue working on the radios… if Lexa comes asking.”

She’s halfway out of the tent when Bellamy’s voice makes her pause.

“Tell O that I’m sorry. We’ll find Lincoln and get him back, along with the others.”

“Tell her yourself,” Raven makes the effort to actually turn and face him. “I’d find it hard to believe that you actually care about him, after you decided to tie him up like some kind of criminal. You need to take a look in the mirror before you do or say something you can’t take back, something you’ll spend too much time trying to make up for.”

She doesn’t miss the irony in what she says and turns to leave more quickly than she should before she has to listen to him point it out. The last thing she needs is a lecture from Bellamy about morals. Even more she doesn’t want to think about what she did, and how much she lost herself, that she’ll never be able to make it up to Lincoln, or forgive herself. She has to focus on saving everyone, it’s the only way she has a chance.

Octavia is easy enough to find. She’s taken up a seat at one of the camp fires in the center of camp and is angrily sharpening her sword. There’s a dearth of people around her as even the grounders are wary of the slight girl turned warrior. She is fierce, Raven will give her that, but she’s also young and full of wonder and cares more deeply than she’ll ever let on.

It’s doubtful most of the grounders will ever see that side of her though.

“Did Bellamy send you?” Octavia asks, not bothering to look up.

“I’m a free agent,” Raven splays her fingers by her sides as if to say she isn’t hiding anything.

Octavia sheathes her sword and tosses aside the rock she had been using to hone the edge. “You can sit if you want.”

“You say that, and yet…” Raven glances at the dirt where Octavia is sat and wonders how long it would take her to get down and back up.

Octavia looks up as if she’s only really paying attention to the fact that it’s Raven now. “Right. Fuck. Sorry.” She scrambles to her feet. “I’m just so angry with him.”

Octavia sends a clod of dirt flying toward the fire.

Raven nods and nudges Octavia with her elbow, waiting for the rest. Often Octavia is quiet but when the words start to spill out she can’t stop them.

“They took Lincoln, they took our people and he just wants to reason with them when we know they can lay our army to waste! That fog the other night knocked out every grounder except Lexa.”

Raven throws a glances around them, no one is paying them much heed but that doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. She grabs Octavia’s forearm and shoves her back toward the tents. They move a few paces further out of earshot.

“What is it Raven?”

Raven purses her lips and curses under her breath because she doesn’t know if she should say anything, but she can’t not. Octavia is smart and resourceful and they need more of the _Skaikru_ to invest and trust in Lexa’s plan. It can’t just be Clarke and Raven. “You cannot breathe a word of this to anyone, do you understand?”

Octavia nods and steps closer to Raven so they’re nearly chest to chest.

“We're working on a plan to–“

There’s the distinctive sound of someone clearing their throat on the other side of the tent canvas that Raven recognizes as Lexa.

“A plan to what?” Octavia prompts.

Raven rubs at her face, scrunching it up. This is not the moment she wanted to run into Lexa.

The canvas rustles as someone pushes back the tent flap and Anya steps outside, holding open the doorway, “ _Heda_ requests an audience.” Her face is impassive and Raven can’t quite tell if they’ll find anger or understanding when they step inside. All she knows is that they’re plan is unfinished and Lexa doesn’t want word of it getting around camp just yet.

Abby, Clarke, Kane, and Lexa are gathered around the war table.

Lexa stares down Raven and Octavia, her look haughty and aloof. This is _Heda_ that they’re facing, not the Lexa that Raven has begun to see emerge when the councils and the meetings end and the tired girl starts to emerge. As far as she knows no one but Anya and Clarke get to see Lexa, and sometimes Raven, because she is around, because she is useful.

Raven has no doubt that Lexa is playing a careful game to earn her trust and the moment she is done being useful Lexa will make it known.

Lexa fixes her with a stare and a slight shake of her head. It’s amusement buried underneath disbelief, “Raven, Octavia, your timing is fortunate,” she pauses, digging the tip of her dagger into the table, “Though we will speak later about your indiscretion.”

“Believe me, I was saving us from a potentially much larger problem,” Raven glances sideways at Octavia who narrows her eyes and glares back. “You’ve been ready to pick a fight for the past week, don’t give me that look.”

Octavia clenches her jaw and crosses her arms, turning away from Raven and looking back to Lexa.

“Octavia is inexperienced, but Indra speaks highly of her.” Lexa says evenly. She turns to Octavia, “And you won’t be knocked out by the sleeping fog, which is an advantage right now. We need someone who can get into Mount Weather, as Raven was about to tell you, to start the attack from the inside and bring us information. I want to speak to Octavia alone about this, we have work to do before the other clans start to arrive.”

Lexa nods to Clarke and sheathes her dagger. Raven watches the exchange pass between them, no words but an unspoken something that seems a lot like Clarke feels they shouldn’t have this secrecy. Lexa raises an eyebrow and Clarke shakes her head but she steps back and ushers Abby and Kane out of the tent.

Raven knows part of the plan, not the details, but the gist of what they want to do. They want to get past Mount Weather’s defenses, turn off their jamming signals, take out the fog machines and the remaining _Skaikru_ are the only ones unaffected by the sleeping fog, except Lexa. So much comes back to Lexa and Raven isn’t sure what that means. Lexa is _Trikru_ like the warriors around her right now, which means it isn’t blood from another clan that keeps her safe. It’s something else. It’s something in the demigod like worship the grounders have of their _Heda_ , like there’s more to her than just a child warrior and trained tactician.

She turns and leaves, questions for another day, when their lives aren’t on the line.

Anya follows Raven out of the tent, “You are as impulsive as that girl, telling Octavia our plan.” She hovers close to Raven’s shoulder her words barely more than a harsh whisper, “But you were right.”

Raven stops and holds up a crutch in front of Anya to do the same. They’re smack in the middle of the camp but Clarke and Abby and Kane are deep in discussion and still walking away from them and none of the grounders are close enough to hear their exchange. Anya wouldn’t have said what she did if they were. “I’m just trying to save my friends and make things right.” Truth is since Bellamy brought up Lincoln she can’t stop thinking about everyone she’s hurt in the past couple of months, people that are now on her side. She helped torture Lincoln, it’s her bomb that killed Tris, and it’s her rocket science that killed three hundred of Lexa’s warriors. Some days it feels like she’s made up of more guilt than anything else.

“We have all done things we wish we hadn’t.” Anya says quickly. There’s a small flicker of recognition in her warm amber eyes.

“Killed people, hurt people you shouldn’t have?” Raven can’t quite swallow. She closes her eyes for a second and all she sees is Tris next to Anya on the bridge. Her eyes snap open again and she clenches her jaw.

Anya doesn’t speak at first, just starts to walk again, and Raven forces herself to follow, feeling like the conversation isn’t over. Anya confounds her, makes her feel light and heavy all at once. She’s soft when Raven expects her to be hard, and Raven never does expect her to be soft.

“Too many to count, I’ve earned the right to stop taking kill scars. ” Anya almost sighs. “All we can do is try to make a better decision next time.”

She knows their warriors take honor in the deaths they accumulate, marking their skin like a tally board. How many kills would Anya have had to earn to have that right. Probably the same amount that would earn her the honor of being Lexa’s General. Yet again, it feels incongruous to hear the grounder talk of being better, perhaps of killing less. “Your people are constantly at war, how can you believe in that?”

Anya glances around before she answers, “Lexa believes there is a different way, maybe one day she will be right.”

Raven looks to Anya as they walk, realizing that Anya is walking slowly so Raven doesn’t have to hurry along and aggravate her back, and yet still moving normally so Raven hasn’t felt like she’s holding her up. Every time she thinks she might understand Anya, she does or says something that leaves Raven with a hundred questions, “You called her Lexa.”

“She was my second, now she is my _Heda_ , but she has always been my friend.” Anya says the words as if they’re simple truths, but in that sentence is the multitudes of the grounder culture.

“That you call her Lexa when you speak to me, what does that make me?” Raven can’t keep the teasing tone out of her voice and she’s rewarded with an eye roll and an exasperated sigh.

“Don’t push your luck, _Skaigada_.”

“Sky girl, huh?” Raven nudges Anya and is met with a grunt. “Come on, what about a cool nickname?”

“Alright, Commander of Boom.” Raven swears there’s a hint of a laugh in Anya’s voice.

“What about _boomheda_?” she counters with a smirk.

Anya whirls around and glares down Raven, making it clear that the title _heda_ is not given lightly even as it seems the English equivalent is commander. The words have earned different meanings.

“Alright,” Raven holds up her hands as best she can in mock surrender. “Commander of Boom it is.”

There’s something about the name, that it’s the first thing that came to Anya’s mind that makes her think Anya can’t look at her without thinking about the bomb that nearly took her life, that took her second’s life. She wonders how Anya can stand her at all. And yet, there’s a tenuous camaraderie forming between them that she can’t deny. As long as she doesn’t shover her foot in her mouth again they should be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that I'm getting a feel for where this is going I can feel the scope creep... probably going to be another long one, but maybe not quite as long as _and four makes home_...  
>  come talk to me about this one, here or on [tumblr](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com/ask)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven struggles to feel like she's doing enough to ensure Skaikru's safety and in doing so earns Anya's respect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations for trigedasleng at the end!   
> if anyone here notices any mistakes let me know. I think I've got a decent grasp on the grammar rules but I'm a little rusty.

Raven waits in the tent, not wanting to try to cross over the camp again until the army has left. She doesn’t want to get in the way and doesn’t want to risk seeing any of them again. The thought of seeing Octavia or Clarke or Anya or even Lexa dressed and painted for war, maybe never to return is too much. One goodbye had been hard enough. In the few short months _Skaikru_ had been on the ground they had been constantly at war and what Raven had learned most thoroughly was that war meant saying goodbye.

And she didn’t like saying goodbye

When she emerges the camp feels like it’s filled with ghosts. Fires crackle though there are scant few left to tend them, only the wounded are left behind, anyone unable to fight. There are no children or elderly in a war camp, anyone there is a soldier regardless of their age or gender. Raven had only been left with a few scant guards– which is more than would have been left behind should she not have been there.

The camp seems cold and vast like a land without remorse. Raven sighs deeply and sets to moving across it and back to the _tek_ tent and the radios that would be her lifeline for the next twelve hours.

Or less.

She glances up to the first stars of twilight and hopes that it’s less.

The sun has nearly set and the air is chill enough that there’s a bite to it that reddens Raven’s cheeks and hands. She rubs her hands together swiftly, trying to avoid the stiffness that will set in if she does get cold. That the temperature changes from day to night and again from day to day is something that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to.

It takes her two minutes struggling with the heavy canvas tent flap to maneuver her way inside without knocking herself over. Inside is everything that she could salvage and have moved from the Drop Ship. She’s got an old radio tower plugged into a makeshift generator that she built from scraps and an old solar panel one of the grounders had salvaged. It’s enough to get things going, but not enough to really do anything else with– like power a small space heater if she could find the scraps to build one.

Caris only looks up briefly as Raven enters. She’s perched atop a pile of blankets, her long blonde hair tied back in braids and twists, anything to keep it from her face. She’s wearing long heavy layers and Raven shivers in her clothes that aren’t made for the cold nights. Raven pauses, tempted to go back out and fetch the blanket from her bed and one of the jackets that Lexa had gifted Clarke.

The tent is further than she wants to walk as her back is already aching.

She’s barely been awake a few hours and the pain is back, creeping toward unbearable levels. Raven knows she won’t sleep, won’t rest, until everyone is back.

“Are they gone?” Caris looks up from her lap where she’s sewing a patch onto her jacket. In the second culling she had been injured but not taken, it had left her unable to swing a sword, but not unable to help Raven with the radios. The girl sounds weary and frustrated and Raven can’t begrudge her that, understanding how infuriating it is to be left behind. Aside from the few guards roaming the camp, it’s just them, listening to the radios, waiting for word from the army, translating instructions and replies between _Trigedasleng_ and English.

It’s more than likely that the _Maunon_ are listening and they need every advantage they can grasp.

Raven nods to Caris, not having anything to say as she makes her way over to the workbench and the stool she’ll be perched on for the rest of the night, waiting. She lets out a low groan as she hoists herself up onto the stool. This is her job for tonight, she can do this, tomorrow she’ll deal with the aftermath.

They all will.

“ _Heda_ said it would be at least two hours before Octavia is in position,” Caris says absently as she stabs her needle through thin leather. “What should we do until then?” she cocks her head to the side but doesn’t look up.

Raven lets out a low steady breath. There is nothing left for her to do but wait for someone to reach out over the radio. Building bombs and bullets just to keep her hands busy feels futile. After the extraction from the mountain Lexa will take her people back to Polis or send them home, and, should the _Skaikru_ have proven invaluable they may be offered a space in the capital city while the coalition determines their fate. They are invaders after all, even unintentionally.

Life is strange on the ground.

“Teach me more _Trigedasleng_.” Raven turns slowly on the stool and leans against the workbench. “If we all survive the night I’m going to need to understand it better.”

 _“Sha boom-gada_ ,” Caris laughs. _“Yu na souda chich op gon trigedasleng_. _En nou chich op gon gonasleng gon Polis.”_

Raven turns the words over in her head making sure she gets the sense of them. “You think _skaikru_ will be going to Polis?” She asks, knowing she should find the words in _Trigedasleng_ given that she just asked for a lesson. _“Yu fig raun Skaikru na kamp raun Polis?”_

“ _Sha_. _Heda_ _na sak au Maunon_.” Caris grins. It’s wild and there’s a sharp glint of pride in her eyes. The faith she holds in Lexa is evident, even as she’s angry at being sentenced to stay behind and help Raven with the radios. “The alliance with your kind will be her prize.”

 

_Lexa’s camp_

_15 days ago_

 

Raven wakes up to searing pain in her low back and abdomen, as if someone has branded her insides with a white hot knife. That, or she’s been shot again. The pain is just as bad, or nearly, it’s hard to tell, and she really isn’t up for debating the finer points of pain when all she wants to do is throw up because of it, which she just might.

She tries to roll over but finds that there are hands pressed to her shoulders and hips to keep her flat on the ground.

“Just stay still for once, Raven.” Bellamy’s voice is somehow quiet and harsh all at once as if he cares but is also highly annoyed. “One of the grounders ran to fetch Clarke, she’ll be here soon.”

Raven grunts some sort of understanding. It’s then that what happened starts to come back to her. Scouts had found an abandoned bunker filled with _tek_. She had convinced Clarke to let her go with the expedition to scavenge. There was so much that she was working on that needed new parts, or frankensteined ones that she didn’t want to leave the gathering to chance. Clarke had agreed on the one condition that she not lift or climb anything.

Of course Clarke didn’t come with to ensure that Raven followed that particular stipulation, and Raven wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do. She’d been granted her freedom from watchful prying eyes and taken it as an opportunity to feel some kind of normal.

Up on a top shelf was what looked like an old CB radio. Raven had climbed up on the shelves, only a few feet off the ground, when it happened. Her back seized, and she had fallen, twisting as she went down. White hot pain… and then nothing, just waking up with Bellamy and Gina holding her down.

“Switch me,” Gina tells Bellamy.

Raven feels the pressure light up on her hips and her body instinctively starts to curl onto her side. Her low abdomen is aflame, or maybe it’s her back, she can’t tell anymore. Her brain, helpful as ever, supplies a memory of Clarke telling her that sometimes pain is felt in the wrong places because the brain doesn’t actually know where nerve endings are.

Gentle hands push her back flat against the ground. She sucks in a breath and then another. It feels like she can’t get enough air no matter what she does.

Raven struggles to open her eyes as a hand caresses her face. “Look at me, Raven.” All the usual bravado and snark is stripped from Gina’s tone and Raven would give anything if Gina were cracking a joke instead of trying to keep her calm. “There we go, just focus on me. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Fell.” Even that one word is slurred.

“That I can see,” Gina says, a hint of amusement in her voice. “How did you fall?”

“Climbing,” Raven groans as she tries to recall if anything happened that would have caused her back to seize, any other detail before everything went black, but what she can remember only comes in pieces. “Radio on the top shelf.” She moves to gesture with her left hand but Gina takes it before she can complete the movement, and keeps her flat to the ground. “Slipped maybe? Why does it hurt so bad?”

Raven watches Gina as she glances down toward Bellamy, her look on her face is grim. “I think you ripped your stitches out and tore open the incision. We found you in a pool of blood.”

“Oh.” That explains the lightheaded and unfocused feeling. She swallows thickly and blinks back tears. She had been getting better. There was a chance that she could walk almost normally with the help of just the brace one day, and now she might have killed her only chance. She needs her legs on the ground. If she can’t walk there’s no way she’ll survive. Her fear and stubbornness fight for the strength to keep trying in that moment. She tries to wiggle her foot, and it feels like she does, but she can’t move to see if it’s just a trick of her brain or not. “Tell me my foot is moving.”

“It’s moving, Raven,” Bellamy says softly. “Just relax.”

“And you’re not just saying that?” Her voice cracks and she chokes back a sob. She closes her eyes as if that will keep her weakness from being witnessed. Gina brushes her hand against Raven’s hair and that only brings on more tears.

“Do I look like I have a death wish?” Bellamy chuckles and squeezes the thigh on her good leg.

Raven cracks an eye open not quite having the energy for both. Relief floods through her so much that she doesn’t even try to deflect her feelings and sass him back. She can still move which means she isn’t paralyzed. It’s a small victory, but it’s something. Her eyes flutter closed again even as she tries to keep them open. Knowing that she’s bleeding, she knows she should try to stay conscious, but the pull to pass out is strong than her will to stay awake.

It’s not so much sleep as it is unconsciousness that she flits in and out of, only aware of pain and soft touches reminding her to stay still. At some point she stops fighting it, just lets consciousness come and go. Her mind wanders through a landscape of sound. Clarke is there and then the next time she wakes Raven can feel that she’s on her side and there’s pressure at the small of her back. The next time she’s moving and sunlight beats against her eyelids making the world as red and angry as the pain crawling up her spine.

For all that anger the world feels like cold eating at her skin.

The next time Raven wakes she comes to more concretely, for a longer period. A sharp pain pulls across her sacrum and she wakes screaming. She’s on her stomach, someone’s arm presses down hard on her upper back and she can feel a hand cradling the back of her head. A cool cloth is held to her forehead.

Pain pricks her back again and it feels as if her leg is on fire. She cries out again, unbidden sobs wracking her body.

“Stay still, you stupid girl,” the tone is softer than the words.

Raven doesn’t remember moving but she feels a hand firm on the back of her thigh, pressing down hard to get her attention through the layers of numbness. “Raven, you’ve got to stay still.”

Clarke. The first voice murmurs something Raven doesn’t understand in _Trigedasleng_. Anya. It’s Anya that’s holding her down and has her fingers tangled in the small hairs at the base of Raven’s skull.

Clarke moves her hand back to the surgical wound at the base of Raven’s spine. “Hold her legs,” Clarke orders wearily. Raven feels a heavy weight on the back of her thighs almost immediately. “Raven, I have to finish stitching this back up. I’m sorry.”

Raven manages to nod. When the first prick of the needle comes she bites back a scream and passes out.

When Raven wakes again she is propped up on her side with pillows. The tent is dark and quiet, filled only with the sounds of breathing. Her back aches in ways it hasn’t since Abby dug the bullet out. She groans as she tries to move, but she can move and that trumps the pain. She tries to sit up, because she can, because she knows if she can keep moving that hasn’t been stolen from her.

 _“Wan yu daun_ ,” Anya’s voice is rough as her hands and Raven finds herself flat on the bed again. “Clarke says we need you in one piece and _Heda_ agrees.”

“Did we get everything?” Raven asks. Now that she’s conscious she doesn’t want to be stuck like this in bed, not when there is work to be done, and not when her friends still need to be rescued. There’s too much to do that relies on her knowledge for her to spend any more time laying around that absolutely necessary.

“Yes.” Anya doesn’t elaborate, instead she wipes Raven’s brow with a damp cloth. Her touch is gentle and Raven isn’t certain if the faint trembling she feels originates within herself or with the grounder.

She can only just make out Anya’s face in the dark, high cheekbones and a proud gaze that is stubbornly fixed either on Raven’s shoulder or her forehead when she’s not checking over Raven’s body. It’s never at her, not tonight anyway. Anya looks at her but it’s as if it’s only to check her for signs of further injury as if Clarke entrusted her with a list of instructions.

“How long until I can get back to work?” she asks.

“That depends upon how still you can stay– and Clarke,” Anya’s voice holds a hint of amusement.

Raven resists the urge to stick out her tongue, not certain how Anya would interpret the gesture and not wanting to chase off the company. “I’m certain I’m at least a better patient than you were.”

Anya’s snort of derision is echoed behind Raven.

Raven turns to see Clarke walk up to the bed.

Clarke’s voice is rougher even than Anya’s, like none of them have slept, “That remains to be seen. It’s not like either of you followed my instructions all that well… though Anya at least didn’t rupture her sutures.”

Raven looks down and away. Guilt washes over her; she’s compromised the rescue mission by delaying her repair of the radios. “We’ll get her back,” she says softly.

The bed shifts and Raven feels Clarke sit down behind her. It’s the middle of the night and all their emotions are running high. The tension around them is palpable. Their survival depends on the success of this mission, despite the friendships that are beginning to form. The _Skaikru_ have to prove their worth to the coalition.

“How is Octavia doing?” Raven asks.

“She’s been training with Lexa all day, and planning. We think there needs to be one last recon mission before we try to break into Mount Weather,” Clarke runs her fingers through Raven’s hair, scratching gently at her scalp.

“Why are you both here with me and not planning?” Raven asks. Her gut reaction is that she can’t be hurt enough, or important enough, for them both to be here with her and not out figuring out their next move to get their people back.

“Clarke and I have been taking turns watching over you.” Anya presses the cloth to Raven’s forehead once more. It’s cool comfort. Gingerly reaching up, Raven wraps her hand around Anya’s and moves them both to the back of her neck. Her body feels like it’s been left next to a fire for too long.

“I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be fine.” Raven tries to joke even as she settles into the cool pressure of the cloth and Anya’s hand on the back of her neck. She can feel sleep pulling her back under.

“ _Heda_ requests that you make a quick recovery. We have work to do.”

Raven would swear that she feels Anya’s thumb brush against the side of her neck. That even as Raven’s hand falls away as she starts to lose consciousness once more, Anya doesn’t move from her position, despite the closer physical proximity.

“And I don’t want you getting up and ripping out your stitches again.” Clarke squeezes Raven’s arm. “I don’t know what permanent damage that might do.”

Raven closes her eyes. Paralyzed, she could end up paralyzed. Down here on the ground she needs her legs, without them she is useless and vulnerable. The grounders prey on the weak. She swallows down the lump in her throat. Her life is directly dependent on her worth and her worth relies on her being able to get the grounder army into Mount Weather having never seen the systems she’s trying to blow up and break through.

“Thank you,” she whispers softly to them both.

Exhaustion pull her under the, lulled by the gentle swipe of Anya’s thumb across the back of her neck, and Clarke’s hand on her arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng translations
> 
> Sha boom-gada - yes boom girl  
> Yu na souda chich op gon trigedasleng. En nou chich op gon gonasleng gon Polis. - you are going to need to speak trigedasleng. Not everyone speaks English in Polis.  
> Yu fig raun Skaikru na kamp raun Polis? - You think Skaikru will be staying in(going to) Polis?  
> Sha. Heda na sak au Maunon - Yeah, Heda is going to outsmart the Maunon.  
> Wan yu daun - Stop moving/hold up


	8. Chapter 8

_Trigedasleng_ lessons don’t last very long. Caris isn’t much for idle chat and the awkward silences that stretch between and Raven doesn’t have much she wants to talk about. The minutes drag by and they let the attempt fall to the wayside. Without an actual connection the banter is hollow and leaves Raven feeling more alone and more worried about her friends who might be marching off to their deaths.

Monty radios at one point to confirm that everything inside the mountain is set. Those of them that have been given freedom are prepared to break into the holding rooms to help release everyone that’s been kept in cages. Everyone is waiting.

After that Caris settles back down with her darning and falls silent again.

Raven hates inaction.. Her hands lay still on the work bench only occasionally tapping or fiddling with something. Until the grounder army is in place and Octavia’s strike team is ready to break into the turbine facility there is nothing Raven can do. She feels impotent, completely powerless to do anything to aide her friends.

Her part in the battle is quiet and insidious– and worst of all, over.

Yet still, she feels anxious as if she still has some power over the outcome, that if she can do something right, everything will work out and the _Maunon_ will fall. If the bombs work the warriors that set the charges will be remembered for their bravery, but if they fail the fate of the _Skaikru_ will be Raven’s fault.

The fear of failure makes her sick to her stomach.

She’s left with her naught but the fear and the silence and the memories from the past two months. Since her feet first touched the earth she’s been moving too quickly to think over what is happening.

Abby had asked her to come down to save their people and she had made the journey to be with Finn, only to find out she had already lost him. It seems like a cruel irony, but the person she trusts the most is the one person she should trust at all, Clarke.

Then the grounders had come in and complicated their lives, though without Lexa they would all likely be dead. Everything comes back to her in pieces, flashes of pain and sorrow. She’s had no time to think, no time to evaluate. They’ve all just been struggling to survive. Contemplation is luxury she hasn’t afforded herself.

There’s been too much to do, and there is still so much left, but in this moment all Raven can do is wait. Wait to see if she did her job right, wait to see if the rescue plan works, wait to see who lives… who dies. So the memories come and she can’t push them away with a task that needs doing.

Already they’ve lost too many. The pain of losing Finn punches her in the gut and she drops her head onto her hands. She clenches her fingers in her hair letting the grip pull until it stings. Maybe if the physical pain outweighs the emotional turmoil it won’t consume her.

Finn had been her family. He was the one person who believed in her and thought she could do anything. He had saved her more times than she could count and the night he had died she had been too weak to do anything. Maybe if she had been able to run after Clarke and help she could have helped save him.

If Murphy hadn’t have shot her she would be the one out there setting charges and not the one sitting here waiting for a voice on the radio, wondering if Clarke and Octavia and all the others would make it back alive. If Anya would come back.

She can still feel Anya’s hand gripped tight to her forearm, too tight. There had been an unaccustomed fear in that grip. Whether it was Anya’s fear for her own life or for Raven’s she isn’t sure. All she knows is for a moment she knew that Anya did not want to leave Raven’s side and it caused her distress.

With the memory of Anya’s hand wrapped around her forearm comes the memory of that morning– had it really only been that morning– when Anya had carried her to bed and crawled in with her. She had held her while she cried in pain when she woke and been a warmth in the night. Anya had been careful, considerate, as if she had appointed herself the one that would watch of Raven.

It was confusing.

Sometimes it felt like there was almost something more between them, like Clarke with Lexa they were growing closer, but it was clear to Raven, spending long days and nights with them both that Clarke and Lexa weren’t shying away from what they were becoming. Even Anya teased Lexa about her infatuation when it was late and it was only the four of them.

There was no such clarity when it came to Raven and Anya.

She isn’t even sure how she feels about her. The grounder culture is foreign and she doesn’t know where this goes or it the flirtation means the same things to Anya that it does to Raven. Right now they need to survive, there’s no time for anything else. Despite her focus, in this moment of reprieve, she can feel the tendrils of desire and caring starting to poke out and search for light. The seed though, is buried deep. It’s too soon, there’s too much at stake, and there’s too much she doesn’t understand.

Even if she had needed to be held the night before maybe it had been the wrong decision; if they ever had time again she needed to find out what Anya felt, if anything at all.

She brushes back tears from her eyes and sits up just as the radio crackles and Octavia’s voice crackles over the radio.

“These things are huge, Raven, are you sure you gave us enough to make them go boom?”

Raven rolls her eyes even though the girl can’t see her. She glances over her shoulder to where Caris is passed out, her sewing still in her lap. At least Octavia was there to relay orders. Still, the other grounder should be helping her. “Yes, O, I’m sure.” She grabs a cup half full of water from the day before and tosses it toward Caris. The grounder wakes with a yelp and narrows her eyes at Raven who just shrugs.

Closing her eyes Raven toys to sound assured. They only have one chance at this. “That bridge didn’t survive me and neither will those turbines.” It’s half-bravado but she knows that’s what they all need right now, herself included. If they’re going to rescue themselves and prove their worth there can’t be any doubt. The grounders can’t suspect that Raven is only half sure of her calculations, all the materials she has are so old she doesn’t know exactly how or when they will react, just that they will.

She hopes she didn’t overdo it. Too much of an explosion and they could accidentally take down the whole mountain with everyone still inside, and probably everyone waiting at the doors.

Raven pushes the thought from her head and turns her attention back to Octavia and the mission at hand. Octavia needs to get the charges set so that when Lexa and Clarke detonate them the army is ready to rendezvous and release the prisoners before the _Maunon_ can react. They’ll be too busy quarantining themselves.

“Do you see where I said to set the charges?”

“It’s a bunch of huge generators, kind of hard to miss, Raven.”

“O,” Raven doesn’t want this to get fucked up. They have to shut the turbines down to shut of the power in Mount Weather so they can get in. This is their one hope for survival. A minute passes and Raven says Octavia’s name again over the radio.

Nothing.

She calls again, this time unable to keep the edge of panic out of her voice. Her ears strain to hear a crackle come through the other end of the radio, but all that remains is silence. She drops the radio to the table and her head into her hands, a frustrated groan escaping her lips. She can do absolutely nothing until someone picks up the radio on the other end.

Time feels like it’s stopped passing and the not knowing starts to eat away at Raven. She clings to the radio, as if holding it tight will somehow keep the others safe, make them answer sooner. A scream of frustration is building in her chest and she wants to let it out.

Unless someone needs her, she’s sitting here in silence to relay messages or maybe help should something go awry. This is why she didn’t want to be left back at the camp. There’s no way for her to know and the not knowing gnaws at her.

Something doesn’t feel right. Octavia should have responded, even just to let her know that the charges were set.

Caris slips back into the tent with a whoosh of cold air. Raven shivers on her stool and her low back tries to cramp for half a minute with the movement. Cursing softly to herself Raven rubs at her low back. Caris sets a mug full of water down in front of Raven and a handful of jerky and dried berries. Laying her head down on the table Raven ignores the food. She can’t stomach the idea of eating right now, not when everything is still up in the air and she doesn’t know if any of them are going to survive the night.

“Eat.” Caris falls short of nudging Raven toward the food but she can see the grounder is tempted to.

“Not hungry.” Raven mumbles and rubs sleep from her eyes. She compromises and downs half the water. The cold hits her empty stomach and she wrinkles her nose. She should eat, but she can’t get herself to when something disastrous has probably happened to Octavia, and possibly the entire mission. Instead she turns back to the radio and waits.

In the back of her mind she turns over the refusal of food, and considers pocketing the jerky and berries. Too many nights she’s gone to bed hungry, she knows what it feels like to not have anything to eat– her mother made sure she knew that lesson well. On the ground though, things have changed. If there is food, they share, the grounders don’t abide anyone going hungry, not when they can help it. They know hardship.

Raven chews on the inside of her bottom lip and picks up a berry. She turns it over in her fingers before tossing it back into the pile. She compromises with herself again, if she feels hungry she will eat. Otherwise it’s enough to drink water.

_“Mochof_ ,” Raven says quietly, drumming her fingers next to the jerky and berries. She glances back at Caris. The grounder gestures with a half eaten slab of jerky toward Raven’s own as if to indicate she should eat. “Maybe later.”

“Anya said Clarke told her you didn’t eat yesterday,” Caris says around a mouthful.

Raven purses her lips, thoroughly unamused, but this isn’t Caris’ fault. Though she can’t quite believe that it was only yesterday when they were still waiting for Anya and the others to return from the final scouting mission.

“ _Boom-gada_.” A voice comes over the radio.

Raven doesn’t recognize the voice as she whips back around to the workbench and reaches for the radio, that for once that night isn’t in her hands. The next voice that came over the radio should have been Octavia’s explaining exactly what happened. Where the fuck was Octavia? _“Sha. Chon yu joken bilaik?”_

_“Atohl.”_ The male voice is clipped.

“Give me the radio,” Caris holds up her hand and leans against the workbench next to Raven. She rambles off in _Trigedasleng_ too quick for Raven to catch. Only understanding her own name and Octavia’s. They go back and forth in what sounds like an argument. Caris narrows her eyes and huffs whenever Atohl speaks, but she doesn’t translate, just grows more cross and growls back at Atohl.

“What was that? What happened?” Raven takes the radio from Caris but stops herself from asking for Octavia. There’s something in the exchange she just witnessed that tells her it’s pointless to call out for Octavia again.

“ _Azgeda_ ,” Caris spits. “I don’t trust him.”

Raven turns the name over in her head, trying to remember. Ice Nation. The tribe from the north. In addition to the distinctive facial scarring that most of the warriors wore, they were all pale and blonde, as if all the color had been bleached from them. She knew little else of them. The arrival of the other warriors had been quick, and few enough spoke passable English.

“Why not?”

“He says that _Heda_ sent a runner for Octavia, and that she told him where to place the bombs.” Caris lowers her eyes, but there’s a fiery steel that burns in them. “You do not know us, but the _Azgeda_ came to _Heda’s_ coalition screaming. They do not like the truce.”

“Why didn’t Octavia tell us this herself?”

Caris’ eyes light up. “You have brains for more than _tek_.”

Raven doesn’t like the implications of this conversation. “How do we tell Lexa that she may have traitors with her?”

Caris shrugs and grimaces, grabbing her shoulder to work out the pain. “We are… to stay put as we must. Either _Heda_ will win or she will not, our orders are to sit and talk on that thing.”

The worry turns back over in her head and she knows there is nothing left for them to do but wait.

Wait for news that the others have died and how. Except perhaps that news will not come. There are so many unknowns in their plan, despite the fact that Lexa felt assured of its success. The _Maunon_ could have weapons they aren’t anticipating, none of them knew what Mount Weather was capable of before the world ended. All Raven can do is wait.

She cradles the radio in her hands and hunches over the work bench despite the strain on her low back. She welcomes the pain to keep her awake. For now it keeps her alert.

An hour passes.

Then two.

Then three.

Still, Raven doesn’t move, only occasionally sipping at the water Caris brings her, dutifully refilling it from time to time. Caris finishes the repairs on her jacket and lays back to nap again. She does her duty. She sits. She waits. When their is someone on the radio again, she will speak.

Raven has no such patience. She shivers as the cold of the night presses into the tent, refusing to sleep lest the smallest blip of static indicate someone on their wavelength. Her eyes burn and her head gets heavy, but she refuses to rest.

She can rest when the others are safe once more.

Raven jolts as a voice comes over the radio and she scrambles to reach for it, nearly fumbling it to the floor as she loses her balance. Her leg is half numb, even moreso than normal. She must have been half in a trance from sitting still so long. Her body is stiff and slow to respond.

“Commander of Boom.” Anya’s voice is the one on the radio.

“Anya!” Raven’s mind races trying to figure out why it would be Anya with the radio. Anya who hates tech, and was nowhere near the team that had the radios. Her heart stumbles to keep up with her mind. Tonight has had too many silences which have only amplified her fears.

“You _skai_ people seem to have luck.”

“It worked?” Raven’s brain is added with being half asleep and full of worry. “Octavia? Is she okay?”

There’s a pause, it’s longer than Raven likes. It’s worrisome, and now more than before she hates the silence where she knows nothing. No facial expression, not even the sound of breath, just nothing, as if when the others don’t speak they cease to exist.

“We’re coming back, we’re alive, it is a victory for both our peoples.”

“Anya,” Raven says her name like a warning and a question. There’s a part of her to feel relieved, to have proof that Anya at least has survived. Her message had been cryptic, and there was no explanation as to why it was Anya radioing, not Clarke, not Octavia, not Lexa, not even Lincoln or Bellamy. Anya had been on the other side of the mountain from the unit with the radios.

What the hell happened?

No answer comes. Raven turns to ask Caris something to find her asleep on the furs. Knowing that there won’t be any further contact until the army returns to the camp Raven tucks the radio next to Caris to man and slips out of the tent.

Her back and leg complain, stiff and sore with staying still all night, keeping perched on the stool. She stretches and glances around the still dark camp. The sun isn’t quite up yet. It will still be hours until everyone returns. She knows she should sleep but instead of walking toward her tent she finds herself walking past the edge of camp toward Mount Weather.

Just past camp is a hill and a vast valley that Lexa will lead her people back across.

She settles herself on an outcropping of rock that overlooks both the camp and the valley. From here she can see anyone approach, not that she can really do anything about them. She only has a small dagger tucked into the metal of her brace, but at least she’ll be aware.

Stretching back she shifts from side to side, twisting her back until she feels her spine shift, a heavy series of thunks. There’s an immediate release of pressure and she groans. Even though she can feel her skin pull where it’s still healing, overall that makes it feel better.

Above her is nothing but the vast night sky. Stars shine and there is nothing to block them. The old books and stories on the ark talked about not being able to see the stars. It’s not something Raven could imagine, having worked among them with nothing but a space suit to keep her from returning to stardust herself.

Raven hears the army returning long before she sees them on the horizon.

They come like a cloud of black fog spreading across the valley in the waxing morning light. Reds and pinks cut across the sky in soft pastels as dawn turns into morning. The sight is vibrant and ominous and does nothing to stem the worry sitting heavy in Raven’s belly.

Her eyes strain as she tries to discern tree from human. How many more of them were there? How many grounders had been caged and bled for the Maunon? Why had _Skaikru_ been treated differently, almost as if they were royalty, or, at the very least, honored guests? What’s more- had Lexa’s army successfully subdued the _Maunon_ or would their enemy soon be at their gates again, threatening another culling. Arkadia was vulnerable, Lexa’s protection only extending to attacks from those in her coalition. Lexa’s edict that no grounder was to attack didn’t afford them any safety from mutual enemies.

Raven stands on the edge of camp atop an outcropping of rock and watches until her back aches too much to stand. She sits and watches the black fog of grounders and _Skaikru_ creep across the Valley no bigger than ants. Her feet dangle off the ledge. She looks for Lexa, and the red flash of her commander’s sash, but the army is still too far away. The light, now clear and bright, offers no nuance to the colors. Unable to locate Lexa she gives up home that she might spot Clarke or Octavia or Anya. Even hopes of seeing Lincoln or Bellamy are lost to the mass as it moves across the land.

Unable to sleep she waited all night. She barely touched the food that Caris brought, her only reprieve from the constant worry a few brief bursts from the radio. There had been nothing but worry to fill her time. Even the all-clear from Anya had not felt like a relief. For a moment perhaps the surge of satisfaction at knowing that her bombs had freed their people had been something akin to a reprieve. Then there had been the small flutter of happiness around the vicinity of her heart that Anya’s voice had awakened.

She tried not to think on it, even as she held tightly to it. Romantic feelings were only an inconvenience right now, and feelings for someone who would likely be leaving by the end of the day would only serve to hurt her. With the promise of happiness comes resentment and Raven is bitter enough about Earth to let it fester.

So she sits on the edge of camp and waits.

It is hours before the approaching army begins to arrive haggard but triumphant. She catches words here and there, though mostly the grounders are quiet and focused. There’s only a small undercurrent of celebration. In her gut Raven knew not everything had gone well.

The first to return are foot soldiers, unknown grounders from neighboring clans. Most are sporting some sort of injuries. At first the army is just a hoard, a mass of people flooding past below her. It makes her feel unhinged. There are too many faces she doesn’t know, and there have been too many grounders that have tried to kill her in the past. Without the _Trikru_ around, without Lexa around to keep them in place, she fights not to flinch at every glance her way.

She’s the Commander of Boom. They fear her.

Raven will never let them know that she is afraid.

The grounders that pass her wear rich greens and pale tans, colors of a warmer climate, _Yujleda_ , the clan of bright foliage. Raven is almost certain of that by the crest painted on their shoulders. The _Podakru,_ lake people, wear greens and grays and blues and look unsteady on the ground. Raven wonders if like _Floukru_ they spend their lives on boats.

Then come the fierce looking warriors, the ones that even other grounders fear. The _Azgeda_ are marked by the scars on their faces and their pale skin and hair. It’s as if the ice has leached the very color from them, they are not albino, merely blond and their skin a blueish white. The white face paint they wear only emphasizes that. They are the only clan that flies a banner, a white hand, the palm a series of spiraling spikes.

Raven sets her jaw and glares down at them because the ones that look up at her are glaring. Apparently being on the same side only goes as far as not killing each other.

Beyond the _Azgeda_ Raven spies a flash of red above the shoulders of the warriors. Lexa.

Raven scrambles to her feet as quickly as she can. Wherever Lexa is Clarke is likely nearby which means Octavia… Lexa also means Anya, as the two are rarely far apart. Raven’s heart leaps at that and she glowers as she scans the crowd again for familiar faces. There had only been a few hundred of them when they left, and returning the numbers have nearly doubled.

Her back protests and she ignores the pain as she climbs down from her vantage point. The going is slow, she’s as afraid of ripping open the wound again as she is slipping or falling. She hops the last few inches to the ground and nearly doubles over in pain as she lands.

The grounder she’s landed in front of mutters at her to go float herself, which means he’s at least spent enough time around her people to pick up that particular idiom. She doesn’t have time to wonder if the time was spent in Lexa’s camp or in Mount Weather, instead just fires back a float you and straightens up.

The grounders probably don’t know her face, Raven tells herself. If they knew they would be afraid. She is the Commander of Boom after all. Picking up her crutches she starts to make her way upstream through the crowd.

Lexa is still a ways off and Raven hesitates trying to pick the path of least resistance.

Bellamy finds her first, pulling her off her feet and into a bear hug, not even asking why she left camp. He just squeezes her as tight as he can. Raven realizes that the stream of people around them are no longer warriors but the grounders freed from captivity.

Raven gets her feet on the ground again and holds Bellamy at arm’s length. There’s a gash on his cheek and he’s spattered with blood.

“What happened? Is Octavia okay? She was on the radio and then she was gone? Gina? Clarke? Where is everyone? Did we get everyone back from the Maunon. Anya didn’t say anything-”

“Slow down, Reyes.”

Fear grips at her throat and tightens the muscles in her chest.

“I’m just glad you’re still okay.” Bellamy pulls her back in for another hug.

Raven gives into it for just a moment as her brain processes. “What do you mean still? Of course I’m fine, I’m not the one that went off to war.”

Bellamy lets her go and crosses his arms across his chest. Before he can say anything Gina catches up to them. “I shouldn’t say anything here,” he looks around and Gina nods to him. “I hate to say this but just talk to Lexa, we’re going to get back to camp and start prepping the med tent.”

Gina reaches out and squeezes Raven’s arm. “We got them all before your bombs blew up everything.”

Before Raven can say anything else they’re both lost to the sea of people. She doesn’t like the way the word everything sits. The charges were only meant to disarm the turbines, take them offline so that the last blew but would be repairable.

Raven lets the sea of grounders pass by her. They’re slower now, clearly it’s been a long time since they’ve been allowed outside, even been allowed enough food. These are those that they rescued from the _Maunon._ She starts to see people she recognizes from the Ark, none of them she knows well, they don't recognize her and if they do they don't pause. She’s just another body. They're like walking ghosts.

Her people are shadowy remnants of themselves. Her stomach feels like acid as if she's ingested rocket fuel. Her friends are nowhere in sight. Even Lexa who should have been there by now, on her horse is gone. Raven turns in a slow circle and looks for a familiar face. Nothing has been right since they left. She should have gone with them. There's nothing she could do to save anyone while she was safe in camp. The thoughts pile on one on top of the other, again and again and she turns looking for the familiar. She feels like she’s spinning faster than she is, her head is light and she knows before too long her knees will hit the ground. It’s too long since she had food or sleep, but she needs to find her friends before it’s too late.

She feels a hand on her shoulder and the world snaps back into focus. Anya.

The world slows down and clears up whenever she is near, like all the static in Raven’s head clears to background noise. She leans into Anya’s hand, let’s her weight fall into that touch. If Anya is back then the other’s are as well.

“What are you doing out here?” Anya asks she only spares Raven a short glance. Her gaze is fixed around them to those giving them a wide berth. She moves into Raven; it’s protective. Even before Raven has a chance to respond she starts moving them back up the hill toward the main camp.

“What’s going on?” Raven steps back from Anya’s touch. The static creeps back in. She hates that she wants to be close to Anya and it makes her feel better when she is. Now that Lexa’s people have been rescued there’s no reason to keep camp with the _Skaikru,_ she’ll be returning to Polis and her people will leave with her. Anya will leave. “Where are my people?” What she doesn’t ask is where Clarke and Octavia are, where Abby is.

“They’re with Lexa.” Anya makes to move behind Raven and push her toward the camp.

Raven crosses her arms over her chest and refuses to budge. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

Anya rolls her eyes but drops her hands to her sides before she reaches out to move Raven herself. “Your _Heda_ has demanded your presence.”

“Lexa isn’t my _Heda,_ she’s made that clear by only conditionally giving my people sanctuary.” Raven snaps. “I don’t appreciate being left in the dark and left behind.”

Anya purses her lips. Her hands flit to the dagger on her leg and she flexes her fingers before she shakes out her hands. She curses under her breath and Raven swears there’s a hint of a smile on her lips.

“Your bombs worked, our people, and yours, are safe, now will you come or do I have to carry you again?” Anya sweeps her hand back to gesture toward the camp.

Raven glares at her for a moment before she starts to walk. This isn’t the reunion that had been playing in the edges of her mind. This isn’t the part of Anya that held on too long or the part that carried her to bed in the early morning light. Somehow Anya has buried deep the part of her that stayed with Raven the night before and held her when she couldn’t sleep because of the pain. There’s no way to tell which part of her is real.

The woman that came for Raven was Lexa’s general and the emotional whiplash stings. Raven had waited on that outcropping of rock in the cold as morning broke waiting for her friends to know if they were safe or not. She had done everything she could to keep them safe and she still didn’t know if it had been enough, without them alive in front of her it still felt like nothing. The bullet in her spine stole more from her than the feeling in her leg. It’s starting to feel like it took her usefulness to.

When Anya draws close to her Raven flinches away. She doesn’t know how to reconcile the cold, collected exterior with the woman who Raven thought she might kiss goodbye the night before. It’s easier this way. If everyone is safe and it’s over then she just needs to suck it up and move on.

“Hey, Commander of Boom.”

Raven doesn’t stop.

“Raven.” Anya’s voice is low and soft and only barely loud enough to hear.

It’s that more than anything that makes Raven slow down even though the pain flairs and settles into her low back as she does.

“What happened while I was gone?” Anya steps toward Raven and this time Raven doesn’t back up.

The truth is there just on the edge of her tongue and it almost spills out when she sees the flicker of worry in Anya’s eyes. It’s there and then gone again and Raven questions whether she saw it at all. “You were the one who was gone, you tell me… or don’t, just tell me to wait to talk to Lexa like everyone else.”

She turns and starts to move toward Lexa’s tent as fast as she can, which isn’t fast at all. The angrier she gets the more the pain spreads until her back and leg are on fire with it. Anya is beside her again before she’s had a chance to process.

It doesn’t matter, now that everyone is back she doesn’t have time to think about what any of her feelings might mean anymore. There’s no more radio silence, just getting back to Lexa’s tent and figuring out what the next thing is that they have to do to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come join me [on tumblr](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com)! my inbox is always open for headcanon questions and the like :)


	9. Chapter 9

Raven tries to out-walk Anya, which is futile, even though neither of them has slept and Anya has been to battle. She watches the warrior out of the corner of her eye, favoring her left side, her ribs clearly angry and sore from too much movement. Raven isn’t the only one still recovering from a gunshot wound. She grumbles to herself that it isn’t fair how Anya is cleared for battle and yet Raven is forced to stay behind a terse frown pulls at the corners of her mouth.

She’s the one kept in the dark, the one who has to watch the people she loves die, the one that no one acknowledges.

When she gets to Lexa’s tent she throws back the flap and storms inside. The pain in her low back flares to life but it’s far away, buried somewhere underneath the anger and the fear. She’ll regret this later, but for now she lets the emotions carry her forward. They’re the only thing keeping her upright.

“Raven,” Lexa looks up from where she sits on her throne. Clarke is knelt beside her, a needle in one hand and a blood soaked cloth in the other. “I will be fine, Clarke,” Lexa says softly looking down. “Just seal the wound with a hot dagger.” She bites the inside of her cheek and purses her lips as Clarke pushes the needle through the flesh of her thigh. Clarke says something too soft for Raven to make out and Lexa shakes her head before turning her attention back to Raven. “Thanks to you we have our people back.”

“I’ve done nothing but sit here all night,” Raven snaps.

Clarke turns and finishes pulling a stitch as she does. “It was your plan, and your bombs, that got us inside Mount Weather.”

Raven frowns but she doesn’t argue. She bite her tongue instead of screaming out the questions she has burning inside her. There’s an air in the tent that not everything is alright. Something happened out there that wasn’t supposed to happen, that they hadn’t accounted for. Their people are back and for the most part they are alive and safe, there is no panic, no enemy on their heels. Something has to give because something already gave.

Lexa looks exhausted, more exhausted than Raven has ever seen her, and Clarke and Anya are quiet. Whatever happened at Mount Weather has taken its toll on them.

“What happened out there? What happened to Octavia, she never radioed me back.” Raven vacillates between getting in Lexa’s face and turning to Anya to demand answers. She stays rooted to the spot, unwilling to show any indecision. She’s sick of being left in the dark.

“Patience,” Anya whispers harshly. She gestures towards one of the seats around the war table.

Raven folds her arms across her chest. “I’ve been patient all night. I’ve been waiting since you all marched off on this mission. Everyone keeps telling me to come to Lexa for answers, I’m here and I want them.”

“Raven,” Clarke’s voice is soft but strained. “Octavia’s alive, but unconscious. She got caught in the blast.”

“That’s what it looks like.” Anya cuts in.

“But that’s not what we think happened,” Lexa straightens up in her seat. She grimaces and Clarke hovers next to her. Her injuries clearly go deeper than the gash on her thigh. “Raven, sit, please.” Lexa gestures to the chair Anya had pulled out.

“If this is my fault I need to go see Octavia,” Raven doesn’t wait for a response, just turns to leave.

Clarke’s voice is what stops her, there’s an apology laced in the tone, “My mother and Jackson are seeing to her along with Nyko, there’s nothing to be done right now.”

Raven leans against the table with one hand, pressing down on it heavily. Her heart feels as if it’s being clenched in someone’s fist. She doesn’t turn around though. If she looks at any of them she feels as if she might break. “So what, we just sit here and wait to hear if our friend dies or lives?” 

It’s a few moments later that Raven feels unsteady arms wrap around her, she looks down to see the familiar blue of Clarke’s jacket. Carefully she turns and returns the hug. There had always been risks, they just didn’t expect the casualties to be theirs, they had already lost so many in the past few months. Fewer than a quarter of the Ark’s inhabitants had made it to the ground alive and day by day it seemed that they lost more. 

Clarke’s voice is barely more than a whisper, “Lexa helped us save our people, we need to trust that, I don’t think we’ll survive what’s coming if we don’t take her offer.”

“What offer?” Raven tries to pull back slightly but Clarke tightens her grip and doesn’t let her move, she sniffles even, as if they’re talking about Octavia dying and not whatever Clarke is trying to clue her in on. Raven presses her face to the crook of Clarke’s neck. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll let Lexa explain the politics, but winter is coming, and I don’t think we’ll survive the weather and the cold without protection.”

Raven tries to think back to Earth Skills and what she remembered of basic survival, “We don’t have any food stored.”

“Or firewood, or blankets… anything at all.”

“What about raiding Mount Weather?” Raven asks. Maybe they could just move in for the winter if the  _ Maunon _ had conceded the fight.

“One step at a time, Raven. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Raven keeps her answer short biting back the quip on her tongue.

“Good, then follow my lead, and help me convince the rest of them.” Clarke squeezes her arms tight around Raven one last time before she steps back. She holds her at arm’s length for a moment. “We’ll check on her soon, okay?”

Raven manages a faux sniffle, though the worry in the pit of her stomach is real enough, and nods. “Now will someone please tell me what the fuck happened at Mount Weather?”

This time she sits when Anya gestures to the chair between her and Lexa. Anya hovers close to Raven longer than she needs to and Raven looks over at her. It’s another moment she knows she will swear she hallucinated. There’s a tenderness in the way Anya looks at her a soft sort of something that isn’t pity and makes her feel like there might be something more behind that look. It’s as if Raven is somehow important and valued and more than she can see. It’s what she missed when Raven found her in the crowd; it’s what drew them together at the goodbye. Raven doesn’t get the chance to push for that gaze to stay, for it to answer to it’s nature because Lexa starts to explain.

“We arrived at Mount Weather without incident. Scouts informed me all the parties were in place. The pieces of the plan were in place.” Lexa pauses and Raven shifts in her seat to face her leaving Anya at her back, just far enough away she can’t quite feel her presence, but close enough that she knows Anya is watching for her reaction more than she is listening to Lexa. Clarke watches the three of them, carefully taking in everything, her mouth drawn in a grim line.

“Octavia should have set the charges, but there was no explosion. We waited, and waited, and minutes before a scout returned the bombs were finally ignited. By that time the surprise had worn off. The  _ Maunon _ had time to prepare a small attack. Men in suits, and some men without suits that didn’t boil in the open air. They had guns. Still, we were able to evacuate the prisoners through the tunnels, though it seemed that the Maunon would pursue. They would not let their prizes be so easily stolen.” Lexa grimaces and stretches her leg.

“We weren’t yet clear, though we had sounded the retreat when the last turbine blew and the doors to Mount Weather were blown open wide.”

Lexa pauses, clearly waiting for Raven to catch up to the meaning.

It comes slower than it should because she doesn’t want to think about what it means. Everyone in Mount Weather is dead. Everyone who might have helped them. The kids.

Raven swallows thickly.

The look in Clarke’s eyes is hollow, “I told Octavia to set a charge on the final turbine, a back up plan. It should never have gone off unless we couldn’t get our people out.”

“A scout found Octavia half-conscious and alone, a trail of blood behind her leading back to the river and the turbines.” Lexa exhales, her fingertips dig into the arm of her throne. “He was  _ Trikru, _ one of mine, he came to me first. There was white paint smudged in her hair on the back of her head. Her radio was gone.”

“White paint. You think the _ Azgeda  _ attacked her.” Raven shoots up from her seat. Many of the  _ Azgeda _ had sneered at her as they came back to camp. There hadn’t been just recognition that she was  _ Skaikru _ , but that she was the one who had given them their win. She pitches forward, crying out, and catches herself on the table as pain shoots down her leg.

Anya’s at her side, hands on her hips and lowering her back into the chair before she can protest. Raven can see Clarke standing, having sprung to her feet. Raven grits her teeth and fails to hold back tears. Her body is useless. With Mount Weather in tact there had been hope that perhaps they would find sterile surgical supplies and Abby could fix her. Without it she’s at the whim of the Earth, and so is everyone else. She lets a few tears fall before sucking in a deep breath and shaking her head to clear it.

Anya whispers Raven’s name almost too quietly to hear. Raven shakes her head and straightens up. Anya sits back in her own seat, her expression neutral.

Raven remembers Anya radioing her after a night of silence, “You knew when you radioed that Octavia had nearly died, that one of your people tried to sabotage the rescue-”

“Raven,” Lexa’s voice is cold. “No one else knows what we suspect happened. The assumption is that the stash of bombs Octavia and her team had were lost in the second explosion.”

“No.” Raven says flatly, fear clutching at her chest. If the _ Azgeda _ knocked out Octavia and stole the cache of bombs they would be unstoppable in the short term. This was planned.

“These are the unfortunate circumstances under which I extend an invitation for  _ Skaikru  _ to join me in Polis to discuss joining the coalition.” Lexa sighs heavily and closes her eyes briefly as she looks to Clarke. Clarke stands as if to move to help Lexa but Lexa is already on her feet before she can. Lexa groans and straightens and walks stiffly around the table. “I know that many of your people are not fond of us, but winter is coming, and with the potential problems I may be facing I cannot protect Arkadia. This winter will be harsh for many reasons, but you have a choice in how you chose to spend it.”

Clarke follows after Lexa for a few steps, “Lexa.” She pauses and Raven watches as indecision ripples across her face only to settle into resolve. “I need to tell them that we are walking into war.”

“To be alive is to be at war,” Anya says softly.

Lexa turns with a heaviness that has nothing to do with her injuries. “War is harsh, but the winter may be harsher. Tell who you must, what you must, but know that you may cause a civil war with the _ Azgeda  _ if you accuse them of plotting treason before they reveal their plan.”

“We can’t keep this from the others.” Raven stands up more slowly. This time her back protests less and she moves away from the table. “They have a right to know that we might be walking into another war in Polis.”

Clarke turns to face Raven with a look that Raven’s come to know all too well, this is a non choice. “War will come whether we want it to or not in Arkadia.”

Raven closes her eyes and breathes through her nose as she pinches the bridge between her forefinger and thumb. If they want to survive Polis is their hope. It may not be their salvation, but it’s all they have. Maybe a thin whispered hope is all they will ever have down here on Earth. She watches Clarke watching her as if they’re building up the energy to do what needs to come next. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Anya, patiently waiting, watching.

Sometimes Anya’s silence is infuriating.

Lexa’s voice cuts through the silence, soft and firm, “There will be a celebration tonight, honoring those we have brought home and sending those we have lost back to space, letting their smoke rise one final time.”

“How are you celebrating when you know there might be traitors out there?” Raven snaps.

Anya takes a step towards her, clearly intending her to be quieter. Raven glowers.

“We rescued our people, Raven, how can you deny that deserves celebration?” Anya’s voice is calm and cool. “And those we lost deserve to be sent on.” She reaches out and rests her hand lightly on Raven’s shoulder. Her touch is warm and open and sends a hundred conflicting signals through Raven’s brain. She’s still reeling from the anger of being left out, and now they’re in danger again. She rolls her shoulder and dislodges Anya’s hand.

“Don’t get me wrong, but being on the brink of war doesn’t give me much hope for our safety.”

“You don’t understand, we’ve been fighting the  _ Maunon _ since before I was born. They’ve been stealing our people and turning them into monsters, with no hope for an honorable death,” Anya snaps. Raven has seen her angry, but never at her. There’s a righteousness to it that pushes at the guilt already sitting in Raven’s heart. It makes her bristle and Anya feeds off of it. “So you’ll excuse us if we find cause to celebrate before the next disaster comes upon us.”

Raven clenches her jaw and crosses her arms, staring Anya down, two immovable forces facing off. “Or maybe you could work on stopping it.”

Raven leaves the tent before they can argue, and before the disappointed pain in Anya’s eyes etches itself any further into her memory.

The cold bites into her skin and she wraps her arms around herself so tightly it hurts. She’ll work with them so that they can survive, but she swears she will never understand the grounders. Raven feels Clarke next to her for several paces before she acknowledges her friend. She has no reason to snap at Clarke, but Clarke chose to follow her when Anya did not, and right now she wants an outlet for the rage simmering inside her.

“I don’t get them.”

Clarke reaches out for Raven’s arm and slows them down. “It can’t be us and them if we’re on the same side.”

“They want to celebrate when there are… when you know what happened,” Raven finishes lamely. She just wants to scream it out, but as much as she’s angry with Lexa and Anya and the grounders in general, she can’t deny the ring of truth that Lexa’s words had.

“Maybe it isn’t the worst thing for our people, give them this moment of happiness and hope.” Clarke answers softly. “Tomorrow we start to face what comes next.”

Raven frowns but she can’t argue with that. She’s spoiling for a fight but she doesn’t want this to be it. What she wants is to stomp back into Lexa’s tent and have it out with Anya until they have an understanding, but there’s no way her pride would let her. Besides, she has bigger problems than the state of her heart.

“Winter,” Raven says the word like it’s a curse, but there’s a bite in the air that hadn’t been there a few days before and it nips at her skin. Some of the stations on the Ark had been poorly regulated. Raven had been cold before, but it had always been dry and only for a day or two. It wasn’t what Lexa explained, or what they had learned about in Earth Skills. The cold on the ark had always only been temporary and more often than not whatever section she was in for work had heat, she could escape it. On Earth there’s no escaping somewhere warmer, just huddling up to a fire so your back is frozen and your front is burning.

There are  _ Skaikru _ who have never been cold before. Raven is almost certain that up until she was put in lockup that Clarke had been one of them. In some ways it seems that the harshness of space made them soft.

“We won’t survive it on our own, will we?” Raven asks quietly.

“Unless we can rescue parts of farm station, and bring them back to Arkadia, no.” Clarke walks slowly, but there’s an agitation in her, and every few steps she quickens her pace only to fall back in line with Raven again. “I don’t think Lexa’s edict to leave Arkadia alone will stand if our people decide to stay.”

“So unless she can keep an eye on us, she doesn’t trust us?” Raven spits.

“She trusts  _ us _ , she doesn’t trust the others, the ones that left, those that might leave. Until we sign the contract or whatever they do down here, as a leader of a people, to a nation of invaders, she has no reason to trust us.” Clarke sighs heavily like she doesn’t like the taste of the words on her tongue. 

Raven shoves her hands in her pockets as they weave their way through the tents. Her jacket isn’t made for cold like this, so cold it burns her skin, and Lexa said that this was mild compared to what’s to come. “Don’t make excuses for her.”

“I’m not, Raven, don’t act like you don’t see the sense in it… especially with what we know.”

“Half her people want us dead, I don’t like it, but it’s our only option.”

Clarke bumps against Raven as they walk, quiet camaraderie coming over them and Raven can feel some of her anger and fear dissipate. Without talking about it they’ve both turned toward the medical tents to check on their people, to check on Octavia. Raven sighs heavily. It’s too much coming at her all at once, and even without the  _ Azgeda _ threat she isn’t certain she would be in the mood to celebrate.

“Today was a big victory, Raven, even with the losses we sustained, there will be more celebration than mourning.” Clarke pauses just outside the clearing of the main bonfires. Four fires pierce the hazy twilight, towering infernos taller than Raven, but not quite as tall as some of the grounders tending to them. Already grounders and  _ Skaikru _ alike are warming food and passing around drinks. “I hear that the grounders celebrate much more freely than we do.” There’s something in Clarke’s tone that makes Raven think she means more than a drunken party. She can already see it in the way the attitude of the camp has changed. People are pressed closer together in pairs or trios. There’s as much hushed whispering as their is loud laughter and banter.

“And what will you be doing tonight?”

Clarke shrugs, “You and Anya, are you going to go and talk with her?”

“It’s no matter, we have people to save, as always.” Raven shrugs it off. Anya’s friendship and occasional attraction seems as fickle as the weather on Earth. She isn’t certain they could find common ground enough to talk without fighting tonight, let alone anything more. “Will you be with Lexa?”

Clarke’s cheeks are already red-tinged with cold but she drops her head and her gaze to the ground, and Raven catches the smile she tries to hide. “I don’t know if the Commander is as free as her people are.” Clarke clears her throat. “Besides, as you said, we have plans to make and people to save.” She starts to walk again, crossing the camp to the medical tents. 

Raven reaches out and tries to catch up to Clarke, “Wait, so you and Lexa… haven’t… Anya was joking the other day as if you had.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and turns to look at Raven. Her look is a little incredulous. “Anya is free to believe whatever she wants. Yes,” Clarke starts loud enough but the next is in a whisper. “I’ve slept in Lexa’s bed, but she has nightmares. We’ve only… slept.”

Raven stops Clarke with a hand on her arm, “How exactly did you get her to trust you this much?” Raven takes a step closer and whispers, “We’re practically still the enemy.”

“Lexa wants _ Skaikru  _ to come to Polis, you heard what she said.”

Raven purses her lips and raises an eyebrow, “Lexa wants _ Skaikru _ or Lexa wants you?”

Clarke shakes her head and turns to keep walking, but as she does she loops her arm through Raven’s. “If Lexa and I can keep our respective people safe...”

“So we’re your people now?” Raven nudges Clarke with her elbow.

Clarke rolls her eyes, “It would seem so from the way they act. What does it matter how I go about it?”

“Something tells me it’s going to matter a lot to-” Raven stops herself and looks around, it’s one thing to half whisper about relationships, it’s another to openly talk about accusing an entire nation of treason when it would be easy for the _ Azgeda _ to hide amongst the other grounders. “Considering the reasons Lexa gave.”

“Which is why Lexa and I… we’re taking our time.”

Raven leans into Clarke as they walk, it’s been too long since she rested or ate and her body is aching with it as if the harder she pushes herself the harder the pain pushes back. She hobbles with each step her low back a low throbbing ache accented with sharp, pulsing nerves. The pain creeps up her spine and pushes between her shoulder blades until even leaning on Clarke to keep from falling causes more pain. Her right leg grows heavy and unresponsive until she’s forced into a limp.

She’s thankful that Clarke doesn’t say anything, just presses into Raven more firmly to help hold her up until they get to the medical tent. It’s rough going for a little while until they start to see the lines of people scattered about with various injuries, many still bleeding, or covered in blood. Raven forces herself to straighten up even as she wishes that Anya would have at least been in a mood to offer to take her somewhere else in camp. It’s not that she would have accepted, because clearly she can still walk. Though without leaning on Clarke she stumbles every few steps. Her head getting thicker with pain and exhaustion. 

A grounder with a gash splitting open their forehead and cheek catches her gaze. Their clothes mark them as a  _ Yujleda _ , their skin tan and wind-worn from the shifting desert sands. There is nothing kind in the way they look at her. Just outside the medical tent, close enough to hear Abby’s voice inside, Clarke pauses in front of a grounder woman who reaches out to her. The grounder stumbles through broken English, but it’s clear her arm is injured, fractured or dislocated, either way he needs to be seen to, it just isn’t urgent. Despite his pain his eyes are kind and he nods to Raven in deference the words boom-gada falling in whispered reverence from his lips. Most everyone ignores them though as they make their way into the tent.

It’s brighter inside the tent but not by much. Candles and lanterns cover every available flat surface, and even more hang from the tent supports which makes navigating the space treacherous. Most of the people in the tent though are laying down so it only matters for the doctors moving from patient to patient. Raven heaves a sigh and pauses behind Clarke, waiting for her eyes to adjust and for them to find Octavia. She immediately regrets breathing in as the sharp sweet metallic tang of blood hits the back of her throat. Pressing her nose into the crook of her elbow she scoots closer to Clarke.

“Where’s Octavia?” she mumbles around her sleeve.

“I don’t know- Mom!” Clarke reaches out and grabs Abby as she rushes by, so focused she almost doesn’t see them.

“Clarke,” Abby looks up, startled. “Raven. Is everything okay?” Abby glances over them both and Raven straightens up as much as she can, trying to hide the pain riding her.

Raven drops her arm and tries to breathe only through her mouth until she gets used to the smell. “We came to see O.”

“And I need to talk to you, about some things in private, Kane should hear them too.” Clarke keeps her voice at a harsh whisper to keep anyone else from overhearing. “Lexa has a proposal and I think we should accept it.”

Abby purses her lips and Raven can see the frustration flickering behind her eyes. “We can talk later, right now I have patients to attend to. Octavia is in the far back on the the right. She’s unconscious still.” With that Abby scoots past them and back to what she had been focused on before they interrupted.

The back corner is dark and quieter than the rest of the tent, everyone there is asleep, or nearly, and clearly staying the night in the medical tent. Grounders and  _ Skaikru  _ alike fill the makeshift beds. Octavia looks small under the pile of furs. A dark purple bruise covers most of the left side of her face. The arm poking out of the blankets only has a few scratches on it, but there’s no telling what the blankets are hiding. She should be outside with the others, laughing and drinking and making stupid bets. She should be celebrating the victory with the others. As much as she doesn’t feel like celebrating herself, that would be preferable to this.

Clarke maneuvers Raven to sit on the edge of the makeshift bed and kneels down on the floor next to them both. Neither breaks the silence. Raven takes Octavia’s hand, Clarke grips her forearm lightly. This is all they can do, hope she’ll be okay in the morning and that they won’t lose anyone else. Half of the hundred are gone, lost to war and sickness and idiocy. Some of the deaths have hurt more than others, most of all the ones they feel responsible for. 

Octavia stirs, but it doesn’t seem pained, she simply wakes enough to shift in the bed and squeeze Raven’s hand. Time stands still in their corner with no words passing between them. Raven doesn’t understand how the others are finding happiness tonight when they’ve lost so much. She feels like she’s just placing one foot in front of the other, trying to keep moving forward, make the right decision, save everyone. Clarke leans against Raven’s knee and Raven lets her hand fall to the top of Clarke’s head.

A fine trembling runs through them both but neither starts to cry. They know there’s no time for that. There’s still work to be done tonight before they can rest, and with no one else focused on what comes after this moment that they’re in, it seems to fall to them to sort out the world. There isn’t a moment where they talk or decide they just look at each other and know that they should go and check on the others that they should start building up what needs to be built so that the right decision is made. They can’t do that there hiding in the back of the medical tent. 

It’s quieter in the front as she passes back through, most of the patients choosing to join the celebration. Most of the grounders cauterizing their wounds with the fires the burn in honor of the dead. It isn’t hard to find most of their people. They weave through the mass of bodies listening for English. Everyone is excited and happy, it feels like the Unity Day celebration had right before everything went wrong.

There are a few missing faces from the celebration, and Raven isn’t surprised by who is refusing the merriment.

They’re almost through the start of the party, back to the quiet and safety of the medical tents when Raven sees Anya pressed close to a grounder, not quite touching but close enough that it’s left to question. There’s a predatory slant to her shoulders like she’s eyeing a prize to be won. 

A sick feeling settles in Raven’s stomach strong enough to cut through the pain. It flashes through her in alternating sadness and anger too quick for her to keep track of until it hits her that she’s jealous. Given what Clarke said earlier, it’s evidently clear that grounders don’t care who they sleep with, that after a battle, anyone will do, as long as the bloodshed is celebrated. Anya clearly has no preference, as long as the person she’s with is strong.

Raven knows that she’s weak after Murphy shot her. It’s why she gets left behind, it’s why the others have kept well away from her. If they learned anything in Earth Skills it’s that the weakest member of the group will be the first to die. The grounders value strength and prowess at war, it’s ingrained in their culture so much that they put weapons in the hands of tiny children who should be playing with stuffed animals. Raven hates that she had entertained the idea that Anya might see something in her and that she had hinged hope on being right. 

The grounder lifts their hand to touch Anya’s arm and Raven feels her throat shut. She turns to say something scathing to Clarke, but Clarke has disappeared into the crowd. If not to head back to Lexa’s tent, to find the others, to ply them with promises and hope and alcohol to keep them warm that night. It’s what they’ve been doing since they left Octavia’s side and she’s tired of it. Hiding the truth from everyone doesn’t sit well with her. Not any more than seeing Anya with someone else.

“Raven!” Monty calls out.

She lets him pull her into a hug but dread and despair has settled back in and she doesn’t want to be there any longer. There are too many people, and too many things she doesn’t want to be reminded of. Too many things she doesn’t want to know.

“Where have you been?” A drunk Jasper leans on Monroe’s shoulder and peers at Raven.

Harper glances up at him and rolls her eyes, “We didn’t see you during the rescue.” There’s a hint of accusation in her voice.

“I wasn’t there,” Raven says flatly. “Someone had to stay behind.” She shrugs, she doesn’t want to get into it right now.

“We nearly lost Octavia thanks to your bombs, you and Clarke are doing a hell of a job keeping us safe.”

Raven doesn’t catch who says it but she flinches all the same. She doesn’t need them throwing back at her the fears running through her head. Even if what Lexa said was true, that the  _ Azgeda  _ knocked Octavia out and stole the bombs and left her to die in the blast, it’s her bombs that nearly killed her friend. Even if it wasn’t her bombs that hurt Octavia, she was hurt to get them. The end result is all the same: Raven made something and because of that her friend is severely injured.

A loud cheer goes up behind the small crowd of  _ Skaikru _ and takes their attention. They’ve begun their celebration and the alcohol has made them easily distracted. Raven slips away and back into the medical tent as quickly as she dares to move, away from their accusatory tones and borrowed hope. She will only bring them down, and that is not what they need. If she and Clarke are to convince the rest to trust Lexa and go to Polis they need good memories, not the pain of their friends laying injured or dead.

There are no spare chairs, some having been made into makeshift cots, others taken up by those well enough to sit, but not to leave quite yet. Raven braces herself against Octavia’s bed and lowers herself to the floor. She rests one arm on the bed and rest her head on the pillow she makes of it. She takes Octavia’s hand loosely in hers and settles in to wait and watch. She’ll wait until Octavia wakes and then she’ll rest. When she knows everyone she set to protect is okay she’ll allow herself a respite. Until then she hasn’t earned it. She hasn’t done everything she could.

She hears footsteps behind her but doesn’t turn. Most people know to leave her alone if she doesn’t acknowledge them.

Abby runs her hand across the top of Raven’s head and tilts it back so Raven has to look up at her. Raven suppresses a glower and gives Abby a blank stare instead. 

“You should find an empty bed and sleep, Raven. Have you eaten?”

Raven closes her eyes, the concern etched on Abby’s face for her when there are others worse off is almost as bad as the accusations of those she thought were her friends. She shakes her head slightly and turns back to Octavia. “I’m fine here. I’ll wait until she wakes.”

“I sent both Lincoln and Bellamy to clean up and eat, and I’ll do the same with you. I’ll send for you all when she wakes.” Abby holds out her hand for Raven to take and stand.

Raven flat out ignores it. She isn’t leaving Octavia’s side. She doesn’t want to return to a cold empty bed where she can hear the celebration knowing that she’ll wake up cold and alone in the morning, neither Clarke nor Anya having come to claim their half of the bed. She curses under her breath for thinking of the other half of the bed as Anya’s as Anya has only spent the one night there and it’s clear from the way she’s acting that there may not be a repeat. Raven and Clarke have been bunking together since the move to Lexa’s camp, though lately she’s been gone as much as she’s there. It’s Clarke’s bed, but Clarke will be gone, keeping away someone else’s nightmares.

Raven presses her face to the blanket’s of Octavia’s bed and tightens her grip on Octavia’s hand. Here is better. Here she won’t sleep, but here she’ll have purpose. “This is my fault.” Raven murmurs.

Abby stands still and Raven refuses to look at her. She doesn’t want the pity. Even more she doesn’t want Abby to agree with her. She feels tears press against her eyelids as Abby squeezes her shoulder and walks away leaving her alone with an unconscious Octavia and her thoughts.

Everything that night feels like it twists down to a singular point: Raven is the reason they’re still in danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk with me about this fic on [tumblr](http://dreamsheartstory.tumblr.com/ask). as everyone gets closer to Polis and I'm really working to try to explore the grounder culture while re-imagining what should have gone down/could have gone better with season 2/3/4/etc... high key wanna talk about ideas because there was so much that we didn't get to explore in the show that seemed interesting.


	10. Chapter 10

Raven isn’t actually asleep when she feels someone squeeze her hand. She cracks one eye open and it burns and scratches. She blinks several times in succession trying to get her eyes to tear up and lubricate. Nothing. She groans and presses her face into the makeshift cot that Octavia is laying on.

Lincoln settles in next to her where he’s been most of the night, waiting for Octavia to wake up. He hands her a cup of water. She drinks it down without thinking merely nodding to Lincoln in thanks. Somewhere in the dark of night when even the last of the celebrations had started to die down and the sun had not yet risen they had run out of things to say and the energy to say them. Bellamy joined them off and on. He’s three cots over sleeping off grounder moonshine.

Morning creeps into the tent and Raven lays her head back on Octavia’s bed. Lincoln leans his back against a post in the tent. There’s nothing to do but wait. A surprisingly easy peace has settled between them, though Lincoln’s insistence that Raven is not at fault sits heavy in her heart because she can’t help but feel that it is. It was her bombs that put their lives at risk, that meant the  _ Azgeda  _ had something to act on. It was her plan to get them into Mount Weather.

She closes her eyes even knowing sleep won’t come, not until this worry and guilt in her chest loosens its grip on her.

“Have you been there since we got back?” Octavia’s voice is as rough as Raven feels, which is to say she sounds downright horrible.

“A little after.” Raven straightens up and regrets it but she doesn’t want to complain. It’s not like she’s the one who got beaten up by their allies. “I had business to attend to with  _ Heda _ .” Raven rolls her eyes even though it burns. She hovers in indecision. Their friendship is tenuous at best, only on the outskirts of something real, but she feels responsible for what happened. 

“We’ve taken turns watching over you,” Lincoln’s voice is low and even.

“Lincoln!” Octavia’s voice catches in her throat and she reaches up toward the sound even as he’s already moving to his knees to lean over her makeshift cot.

Raven closes her eyes and presses her face to the scratchy blanket. It’s as much privacy as she can give them without moving and she knows that moving now will feel like hell, one she’s not quite ready to face. She tunes out the whispering, soft and sweet. The tenderness presses on her heart.

Lately her heart feels bruised and she doesn’t know what to do about the way she feels. There’s no time though to fix it. No one and nothing she trusts to fall into like that when they’re jumping from one disaster to the next. She’s almost envious of Octavia’s ability to open herself up to Lincoln and the understanding that she found. Clarke is that way with Lexa, though they’re much more careful, Lexa much more hesitant. Though there is more at stake for them. Raven has no excuse and no explanation for the mixed signals she and Anya are sending each other.

Octavia’s voice cuts through her thoughts and she turns her head to the side. Lincoln has helped her sit up and she’s leaning heavily into him. “I feel like one of your bombs went off in front of me,” She groans and stretches slightly. “Last thing I remember was talking to you on the radio, and then Atohl helping me place some of the charges. He got upset about something…”

Raven exchanges a look with Lincoln. He shakes his head slightly clearly wanting to hear what she remembers without them prompting.

“How’s your head?” Raven asks. She should go get Abby, or Jackson, let them know Octavia is awake so they can examine her, tell Bellamy, let the other’s know. They should get Lexa, have her talk to Octavia, see if Lexa’s suspicions line up with what Octavia remembers. She glances to Lincoln who is in no such hurry. The night before they hadn’t said much for fear of being overheard but he made it clear that he had at least the same assumptions as Lexa even if he had never heard hers.

He was an outsider, kicked out, though he had helped. Lexa wasn’t about to cast him away when he had helped bring back their people. As long as he stayed with Octavia, and as long as she stayed with  _ Skaikru _ and  _ Trikru _ , things would be overlooked. 

Octavia sits up slightly, concentration creased between her brows. Her hand wraps around Lincoln’s like his touch calms the jagged thoughts in her head. She looks to Raven like she knows there’s something Raven isn’t saying. There is, but she’s not going to admit it. Her exhaustion almost makes it easy to keep quiet about all the things she’s been asked to not say. Raven sits, and waits, and watches Octavia struggle with her memories all the while wishing that sleep would come to her.

“He knocked me out,” Octavia touches the back of her head gingerly and sits up, leaning forward in the bed. “Shit. Did we save everyone?” She turns her head to look between Raven and Lincoln once more, waiting to see if they tell her or lie.

“We did, nearly everyone,” Lincoln answers softly. “The Mountain fell.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel like we won, what aren’t you two telling me?” 

Raven wants to bite the inside of her cheek but there’s no changing what needs to be said and she hates it. “We should get the others, and then we can go over everything.”

It’s what everyone else said to her, and she tries not to flinch at Octavia’s glare because she knows the same look was on her face when everyone else brushed her off to have her talk to Lexa. Raven clenches her jaw but doesn’t elaborate. Her leg is half asleep from being on the floor all night but she doesn’t complain as she presses to her feet. 

The camp is just waking and it doesn’t take her long to find everyone. Lexa promises to wake Clarke. Abby is on her way to the med tent, something strong and caffeinated in her hands. Bellamy is dead to the world, and it takes Raven smacking him with his own pillow to wake him up, which is about the time Gina comes back into the tent. Raven shrugs and says something about Octavia being awake as she leaves them to get up for the day. It’s Kane that’s hardest to find. 

She finds him sitting on the edge of the camp watching the sun come up over the valley not far from where Raven had sat the morning before and waited for everyone’s return. His back is to the camp, his shoulders hunched forward and she can tell he isn’t so much watching the sunrise as he is sitting in it.

“The grounders are breaking camp,” he says before Raven has a chance to say anything. “I suppose  _ Heda _ wants to speak with us.”

“Clarke,” Raven stops a few paces short of Kane. She closes her eyes, the sunlight spilling over the horizon in oranges and reds and pinks is too much. “We have something to decide before they start the march back to Polis.”

Kane nods once and moves to stand.

“Med tent, Octavia is awake.” Raven doesn’t wait for him before she starts her walk back. She wants a few moments alone before they’re all there. Everyone from  _ Skaikru _ should be hearing what they’re about to tell the handful of them, but the more people they bring in the more complicated the decision becomes. Something not complicated would be a welcome change.

Her quiet doesn’t last long as Raven nearly runs into Anya coming out of someone’s tent. She doesn’t see Raven at first, her hair half down, only a few braids still intact. There’s a lightness in the way she moves that Raven’s only seen once before, and that was the morning after Anya had shared Raven’s bed. For a few brief moments when Anya had brought in breakfast the seriousness had lifted, in its place a lighthearted hope. Anya turns as she puts on her jacket and nearly walks straight into Raven.

Raven flinches as Anya reaches out and catches her, making a stumble out of what would have been a fall. She leans into Anya’s hands, lets her take her weight, even as what she knows she just saw processes in her mind. She’s too tired to pull away; she’s too upset to let go completely.

“Thanks,” Raven places her hands on Anya’s wrists pushes back.

“Raven,” Anya starts softly, the lightness is there but it’s tinged with a tenseness. “Are you okay?” 

There are layers to what Anya isn’t saying and Raven doesn’t have the energy to dive into that, nor the time. “ _ Skaikru _ is meeting; we need to discuss the offer.”

Anya’s hands fall from Raven’s waist and she nods once, “I can accompany you if you would like.”

Raven glances behind Anya to the tent knowing it’s probably the blonde’s from the night before. There’s a broken disconnect between them and she isn’t certain where it lies. Maybe after she’s slept it will be clear, but now. “People to save, you know how it is.” Raven tries to laugh it off because there’s nothing else to do.

She’s the last one to make it back to the medical tent.

“Raven,” Clarke motions her closer. “We were about to go somewhere… more private. I’m sorry, Octavia, but we need to discuss this where…” Clarke glances over her shoulder to the beds filled with grounders and  _ Skaikru _ alike.

Octavia frowns and tries to sit up but Abby pushes her back onto the bed. “You need to stay here. I don’t want you up until I’m certain you won’t rip out any stitches or pass out on me.”

“Abby, I’ll be fine.” Octavia protests. “You practically let Raven out of bed the minute you took the bullet out of her spine.”

“I didn’t let Raven do anything.” Abby purses her lips and glares softly at Raven. “You’re staying in bed, Octavia.”

Clarke leans over and brushes hair off of Octavia’s forehead. “Besides, Lexa needs to speak with you.”

“That can wait until we know she’ll be okay,” Bellamy sits down as if he plans to stay, glaring up Clarke. Clarke doesn’t flinch, just regards him coolly until his shoulders soften and he folds into the seat.

Kane leans against one of the posts of the tent. He glance to Lincoln and around the group. “Is there any place we can speak freely in this camp?”

Raven feels like she’s lost half the conversation, not knowing what Clarke’s said and what she hasn’t. “There are only certain things we need to be careful of.” She waits, watching Clarke and only continues when Clarke nods. Raven sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly before she starts to speak. “It doesn’t matter if anyone hears that we’re considering going to Polis, which I think we should do.”

“Raven’s right,” Clarke jumps in, a small smile on her lips. “It’s our best chance at survival.”

“Lexa put out an edict banning attacks on Arkadia,” Abby turns and steps back to face everyone. “We would be safe there.”

“Winter is coming, it’s already cold and we have no supplies.” Raven interjects.

“And there are other matters to do with things to the North that we can’t say yet for sure.” Clarke chews on her lip, searching for the right words.

“ _ Azgeda _ attacked me to steal the bomb cache from my unit.” Octavia struggles to sit up straighter in bed, even flinching away from Lincoln’s gentle touch to help her. “They plan to-”

“What they plan doesn’t matter,” Clarke interrupts. She glares at Octavia. “There are things we can discuss in the safety of Polis.”

Silence falls uneasily amongst the group. Tempers are flaring, and there’s just enough not being said that they’re all at risk of saying the wrong thing. 

“Arkadia is our home,” Bellamy starts. “Our people are there. Half of those we rescued are anxious to get back.”

Raven and Clarke watch each other. There’s one more piece they haven’t touched on, that Lexa told them she wouldn’t be able to protect Arkadia from Polis. That with the impending civil war with  _ Azgeda _ their only chance for survival lay in Polis. Clarke looks down to the floor and Raven follows suit as the arguments start to rise around them. Hushed voices discussing Polis versus Arkadia without all the facts.

“There’s something you haven’t said, why both of you are unquestioning in your acceptance of moving our people to Polis.” Kane stops the debates.

Raven looks to Clarke who shakes her head slightly. They can’t tell them everything but they need to. 

Clarke shakes her head and Raven knows she just wants to tell people to listen to her, trust her, and shut up, because that’d be easier. “Listen. If we want to survive, we need to go to Polis with Lexa, today.”

“How do we know she’ll keep us safe?” Gina’s questions quietly.

“She risked her own people to get  _ Skaikru  _ out safely of Mount Weather.”

“And Arkadia?” Bellamy asks

“They’ve made their choice,” Clarke snaps.

“Many of our people want to go back,” Bellamy counters.

“And that’s their choice.” Clarke heaves out a sigh. “I’m saying we won’t survive what’s coming if we don’t go with Lexa.” Clarke looks to Raven for confirmation. Raven was the only other one that heard what Lexa had to say, heard Octavia confirm it without any prompting, just her memory. She’s the only one that was on the radio when Atohl answered and heard the way Caris spoke to him, what she said after to Raven.

The mistrust of the  _ Azgeda  _ runs deep, but the clans respect the coalition more than they resent old feuds. 

Raven doesn’t know if she trusts Lexa the way Clarke does. Lexa is cool and calculating, she makes her choices to win, to protect her own people, and having technology, keeping the other side from acquiring it, is the way to win right now. Lexa may have other motives, but Raven isn’t blind enough that she can’t see the value in bringing them to Polis and keeping them safe.

She tries not to think to hard about how they could easily kidnap her and perhaps a few others and leave the rest of the  _ Skaikru _ to die. Maybe therein lies Lexa’s honor, that she doesn’t force them to do anything, but gets them to agree to what she needs through giving them just enough to make them think that they have any say, “I don’t know if we can trust them either, but going back to Arkadia won’t save us.”

“So we would be on our own,” Abby crosses her arms and purses her lips.

Clarke matches her mother’s stance. “Lexa offered us sanctuary in Polis. We aren’t on our own.”

“I think the girls are right,” Kane rests a hand on Abby’s shoulder. She lets it rest for a moment before she shakes it off.

“Fine. But everyone gets to make their own choice, there will be no forcing anyone to go where they don’t want to be.” Abby holds up her hands.

“As long as no one says anything about our potential explosive problem to the north, that’s fine.” Clarke raises an eyebrow, daring anyone present to challenge what she says.

It’s almost a relief when everyone turns to leave. Raven sinks down onto the edge of Octavia’s bed, ready to lay down. Her respite is short, only long enough for her body to begin to feel again, heavy and drained and full of pain.

Camp isn’t broken until noon. Lunch is had on foot, and horseback. A few horses have been gathered for some of the  _ Skaikru  _ though most are relegated to walking with the grounders. The sick and injured are carried and pulled on stretchers. Raven walks until she starts to fall behind. She keeps walking then, letting everyone she knows pass her by.

It isn’t that far into the march that she finds herself surrounded by unfamiliar faces. She points her gaze on the ground and tries to pick up her pace, one foot then the other, ignoring the pain in her leg and back that makes her limp, and slows each step. It’s agonizing, bringing a sweat to her brow despite the chill in the air. She doesn’t let herself think about stopping for fear that she will give up not knowing how much further they have left, just that Lexa said the journey would take more than a day. 

She loses track of time, it may have been several hours, or only several minutes, when Clarke hops down off the horse that she’s been riding. Raven stumbles as she stops and winces as she straightens up to look at Clarke.

“It’s terribly uncomfortable, but it beats walking all the way there.” Clarke smiles softly and nudges Raven in the shoulder. “It seems to work well for two to ride.”

Raven shrugs and glances at the near black beast. She can feel it watching her and there’s something that feels too intelligent for something that a human can control. “I’ll never make it up there.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me Raven Reyes is afraid?”

“That’s a ridiculous thought.” Raven shakes her head, not about to admit that it might be true. “I think being on the ground is addling your brain.”

“Is that so?” Clarke takes a step forward and there’s swagger in that movement, challenge.

Raven knows she’s stuck between her pride and her pain, not to mention the gnawing fear in her gut.

“If you prefer, I’m sure Anya wouldn’t mind you riding with her.” Clarke winks.

Raven huffs and takes a step toward the horse which huffs out air as she approaches. Great. Good start that. She looks over her shoulder at Clarke, “So are you going to help me up, or what?”

They ride until sundown and Raven isn’t sure she’s is less pain or more than she had been when she got on the horse. She had almost slept in fits and starts, the slow steady plod of the horse lulling and soothing except when she started to doze and her spine became loose and it began to sway and pinch. Clarke rested more easily than she did, even as Clarke held them both upright.

Raven skipped dinner, too much pain eating at her to stomach the idea of food, and curled up on a bed roll underneath a few furs as soon as the option was given. The night is cold, but it’s only another annoyance on top of the pain and exhaustion. It’s just another tick mark that saps her energy and keeps her awake all at once. She shifts and turns over again, pulling the fur tighter around her as she tries to ward off the cold, but it isn’t the cold that’s keeping her up. Clarke is warm near her back, but scooted closer to Harper and Monroe on the other side of them. Raven has been tossing and turning too much to stay closer. By her guess the night is probably half gone and at best she’s half-asleep and one hundred percent grumpy.

She’s counted three changes of the guard and the night is still eerie and vaguely bright. The sun shouldn’t be up for hours still. Raven frowns and tries to pull the furs tighter around herself but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps. She’s in pain and frustrated and hasn’t slept in days. She hasn’t slept since Anya left her alone that one morning. They’ve only snapped at each other since.

At least Octavia is awake and okay now. She’s curled up, not far away, in Lincoln’s arms. Lexa is keeping her distance from Clarke, there’s nowhere for them to be in private and Clarke is afraid the  _ Skaikru  _ will be angry over what Raven had joked about: Lexa and Clarke are deciding their fate to stay together. Maybe it’s true, but Raven can’t see another way to keep them safe on the Earth. There are too few of them left, and Lexa brings out a life in Clarke that Raven envies. 

Raven presses her face into the old shirt that she’s using as a pillow and tries to let the pull of sleep take her. She’s exhausted. It hurts to be awake. Her eyes burn and her body is a constant scream of pain, but it’s all become so much that she can’t fall asleep. Emptiness presses at the corners of her eyelids where tears should be, but she’s cried out, too tired to waste the energy on crying. 

Fourth changing of the guard, soft footfalls in the underbrush draw nearer.

Someone pauses next to her and Raven pretends to be asleep harder.

“Come on Commander of Boom, I know you aren’t asleep,” Anya’s voice is barely a whisper in the dark.

Raven groans and whines slightly as she pulls the furs up to her ears. Her heart cracks and she just can’t deal with Anya right now because she wants to be held and it’s frustrating to feel that constant need when she knows she can’t have it. It’s easier to be angry. If she pushes Anya away she won’t get hurt. It doesn’t matter if they’re all going to Polis or not.

Anya’s hand is light on her shoulder and Raven rolls her shoulder to throw it off. Still she cracks an eye open and turns her head, her curiosity stronger than her anger. 

“You aren’t fooling anyone playing at being asleep.” Anya reaches out again, looking for a moment as if she might tuck Raven’s hair behind her ear but she lets her hand fall short. “I have something I want to show you.”

Raven rolls onto her side and eyes Anya warily. “Can it wait until morning?”

“Are you sleeping?”

“No.” Raven sighs heavily and sits up. Her back protests and pain flares in her hip. She grimaces and cries out softly, half curling into her side to try to keep herself from breaking into tears. She needs to rest, actually rest, but she knows even if Anya walks away right now that won’t be happening. The forest floor is uneven and hard, though not much colder and no harder than the metal floor of the half-room she shared with her mother. It was easier to sleep back then, when she was naive and pliable. She tries to straighten out and stand up but her body won’t cooperate.

Tears spring to her eyes and she lowers herself back onto the ground. Anya reaches out then, a soft hand on her shoulder.

“Let me help you up.”

“I don’t want your help,” Raven hisses the words through clenched teeth. She doesn’t want Anya to pick her up and carry her somewhere. It’s too complicated right now. “I can get up on my own.”

Anya shifts and sits back on her heels, crouching down and watching Raven. 

If Raven had the energy she’d snap and say something snarky. As it is she can barely roll on her stomach to try to get her knees underneath herself. “I don’t need you to carry me again,” she mutters. She presses her forehead into her hands and can’t stop the tears. She cries in silence, not wanting to to wake up the others. It’s the middle of the night and they’re all tired and exhausted and scared and no one needs to see this. She doesn’t need them to know how bad it is. If she could change that Anya knew she would.

“I’m not going to carry you, just help you stand.” Anya squeezes her shoulder gently and Raven nods.

“Fine,” she pushes the word through gritted teeth.

Her face pressed to the damp earth, Raven nods again and can’t get herself to sit up. She misses the lumpy makeshift cots and the warmth of the tents at night. Raven knows she’s on edge. This is worse than the other night when she nearly passed out and Anya carried her to bed. Doubt creeps over her but Anya doesn’t move to help her and she knows it’s because she believes Raven can move on her own.

She presses her left hand flat to the ground and then the right. Dirt digs into the palm of her hand and she closes her eyes. With a grunt she straightens her arms and glares at Anya, daring her to say anything. Anya sits there, waiting patiently, watching, not moving. Her face is expressionless; it’s infuriating. Raven pushes back so she’s sat on her heels. She’s in no worse pain than before.

“What now?” She glances over at the sleeping forms of her friends and wonders how they haven’t woken. Maybe they’ve grown used to her crying and writhing in pain. Raven scrubs at her face with her sleeve and looks defiantly to Anya.

Anya simply stands and reaches out her hand waiting for Raven to do whatever it is she needs to do to stand.

Standing goes easier than she expects it to, though she does stumble into Anya. Even in the dark Raven swears she sees a flash of a smirk on Anya’s lips. It’s too much.

“Where are we going?” she asks tiredly. At this rate she’ll pass out before they’ve made it out of camp tomorrow after breakfast. If worse comes to worse Lexa will offer her a ride on one of their horses, which means riding with someone who knows how.

Anya wraps her arm around Raven’s waist and helps her maneuver out of camp.

Raven lets herself be led. She doesn’t complain because she knows without Anya’s help she would have fallen on someone. More than once she feels Anya’s arm tighten around her as she tries to step over or around something. 

“I want you to see something,” Anya answers softly after a while. Which is no real explanation. “I think… perhaps you will understand when you see.”

Once they’re clear of the camp she lets Raven go. Raven wraps her arms around herself, and her pace slows. Her leg drags behind her more. Her gait becomes more pronounced and lopsided. She presses the heel of her hand to her eyes to stop the flood of tears that starts.

Raven doesn’t miss how Anya slows to Raven’s pace once more without making Raven feel like she’s moving far too slowly. She appreciates it even though she knows Anya could easily be moving twice as fast as they are now. Still, her frustration grows and it’s only fueled by her pain and the exasperation she feels at her body not being like it once was. 

She can feel the edges of the breaking point. She is in ruins. There’s little left in her to take away or shatter. Her body feels like it’s hours away from giving up and her mind is not far behind. Even when she’s rested she feels too close to the edge. The  _ Skaikru  _ may need Polis to keep them safe but Raven wonders if she needs it to even have a chance. Even if she survives, she doesn’t know what will be left of her, or if what will be left of her will be worth saving.

A tree root tangles up her steps and Anya catches her as she twists and falls. Strong arms cradle her and Raven expects the tears to come again but she’s too exhausted, too beaten and broken. Maybe Anya is taking her away from the others to leave her, she’s useless like this, and she wouldn’t blame the others for leaving her behind, too much of a burden to take care of her. 

It isn’t until Anya bounces her slightly in her arms and Raven opens her eyes that she realizes she’s still being held. The tension between her back, gravity, and Anya’s arms pulls on the muscles and her spine and relieves some of the pain. The despair doesn’t go away, but some of her anger seeps away with it.

“We’ve got to stop doing this.” Anya bites back a smile.

Raven lets out a breathe, she feels to heavy to find a quick retort. There’s an edge of flirting in Anya’s voice and Raven can’t get herself to respond to it, however sincere it is. If it is, it only confuses the matter. 

“You don’t have to, you know.” Raven shrugs.

Anya looks down at her in confusion but she gently sets Raven on her feet. Raven bites back a grimace as she finds her weight on her own two feet once more. She’s almost turned to continue walking when she feels Anya’s hands on her shoulders. The look on Anya’s face is more open than Raven thinks she’s ever seen it.

“You deserve to be seen and tended to,” Anya says simply.

Raven shakes her head. “My body is broken, Anya. I’m weak.” She almost chokes on the word. It stings her throat and her eyes burn with tears she can’t shed.

Anya purses her lips and gives Raven a look like she’s being stupid. “We’re almost to what I want to show you. Do you trust me?”

“I’m out here, aren’t I?” Raven gestures around to the empty forest. For how upset she’s been with Anya over flirting with the blonde during the celebration, and what she assumed happened next, she’s surprised to find that she still does trust Anya. Even more, she’s surprised to find that she wants to be back in her arms.

“Then close your eyes.”

“Anya.” Raven looks up at her skeptically. “I can barely walk with my eyes open.”

“I won’t let you stumble,” Anya slips behind Raven and lays her hands gently on Raven’s waist. “If you start to go down I’ll carry you once more. Just promise me you won’t open your eyes until I say.”

Raven’s heart pounds in her chest and she looks up over her shoulder wondering if she should trust Anya or not. She knows deep down she has no reason not to trust her. Anya is always there, never pushing her, always knowing when Raven really needs her. Had their spat the other night been Raven’s fault? She’s too tired to wade back through the details. Instead she closes her eyes and faces forward. She stops short of leaning back into Anya.

“Lead on.”

Their progress is even slower than before. Raven feeling out each step gently, waiting for a tree root to grab at her foot, or the earth to slide away. She takes every step expecting to crumble, but Anya’s hands are firm on her waist to keep her steady. Anya herself keeps a thin distance between them, just enough for warmth to pass from one to the other, but nothing more.

It feels like twice as long until Raven feels Anya’s fingers dig into her hips to signal her to stop. Anya steps closer and Raven’s heart flutters as she feels her press lightly to Raven’s back. She clenches her jaw to keep her eyes shut and her body from shaking. She tries to remind herself that Anya chose to go to bed with someone else the night before but she still shivers as Anya’s hands run up her arms and cover her eyes.

Anya’s breath is warm on Raven’s ear. They breathe for a moment and Raven realizes that Anya is almost as nervous as Raven is because of their proximity, or perhaps because of what they’re looking at. This part of the forest is quiet, quieter than the rest, but it isn’t haunting or empty. There’s something in the air that feels electric and alive.

“Open your eyes,” she whispers. Her lips almost brush the shell of Raven’s ear.

“You’re still covering my eyes.”

“I know,” Anya laughs softly.

Raven rolls her eyes, but settles back against Anya and opens her eyes. Her eyelashes brush against Anya’s palm and Raven can just make out a glow beyond Anya’s hands. The light she had thought meant morning was nearly upon them is nothing of the sort. It’s blue and soft and pulsing slowly.

“What?” Raven asks in awe and she hasn’t even seen what is causing the light. She lifts her hands, fingers gently encircling Anya’s wrists and pulling her hands down. Anya lets her and the sight before them is revealed all at once in a wash of bright neon blue.

Anya doesn’t move away and neither does Raven. They lean into each other, not quite holding on but resting gently into each other. The night air is cold around them but Raven feels warmer than she has in hours with Anya at her back.

Thousands of bioluminescent butterflies rest in the grove around them on every surface. Raven looks behind them, even the path that they must have taken into the grove has been covered once more by the ever shifting haze of insects. They glow in every shade of blue from cerulean, to aqua, to perriwinkle. Every inch of the grove is covered in shimmering, glowing butterflies, moving lazily underneath the moonlight. 

“They’re the Commander’s Monarchs.” Anya says softly. There’s reverence and awe in her voice. Raven’s never heard her like this. “They only flock like this when Heda is returning to Polis under good favor. It’s an omen,” she leans forward pressing her cheek to Raven’s and Raven can’t breathe, she’s too close and there are too many feelings burning her up in that moment. Maybe it’s the feeling that Anya is holding back even as she turns her head slightly to whisper in Raven’s ear: “A positive one.”

Raven wants to take a step away from Anya, clear her head, but the comfort and the closeness and the warmth are not something she’s ready or able to give up. “How did you know they were here?” she stutters.

“I saw them start to gather on my watch. There were too many heading East, toward Polis.” Anya straightens and moves slowly around Raven, the Commander’s Monarchs move slowly, lazy almost, unworried about Anya’s footfalls so close to them. “I think this means that _ Skaikru _ is meant to be with us. That…” Anya’s breath catches in her throat as if she can’t bring herself to say the rest of what she is thinking. 

Raven isn’t sure she’s ready to hear what it might have been. She knows she wouldn’t believe it. She’s exhausted and she can feel her emotions reel, tumbling from one extreme to the other and she can’t quite get a grasp on them before words start tumbling out of her mouth once more. Too much has happened in the past week and she doesn’t understand any of it. The way the grounders are is so very different from how  _ Skaikru _ is. “If you think that we’re… that this…” Raven fumbles for the right words, the frustration in not knowing what to say mingles with the hurt of seeing Anya with someone else until her tone goes cold. “Why were you with someone else last night?” Her tone is accusatory and angry.

The softness in Anya’s face turns to steel and she sets her jaw to the side. “You made your displeasure with me clear, but we had won a long fought battle, Raven. It was my right to celebrate.”

Raven straightens up as best she can, knowing better than to try to take a step away to make her point. “So anyone will do? It doesn’t matter to you who you fuck? As long as you get some?”

Anya shakes her head and closes her eyes. “I offered that honor to you first, and you refused.” Her voice is thick and low and snappish. “Niylah is my friend, and there is no shame in the comfort that we took in each other’s arms. It doesn’t change… It doesn’t matter in the way you feel it does.”

The tears on Raven’s cheeks are so hot that for a moment she thinks they might be acid. The butterflies around them start to go dark, slowly, just the ones closest to them as if they’re in a black hole. “I don’t know about you all here on Earth, but where I’m from if you like someone, you don’t go and fuck somebody else just because they’re upset.” Raven crosses her arms over her chest and clenches her jaw. It hurts, but everything hurts. She ignores the tears on her cheeks and glares Anya down.

Anya matches her, anger for anger, verbal shove for verbal shove. “Down here we don’t shame our warriors for seeking comfort and release after they risk their lives.” Anya takes a step forward, getting in Raven’s face. “And when our friends tell us no we don’t chase after them.”

“Then why did you come after me ton-” 

The butterflies go dark.

Anya slaps her hand over Raven’s mouth.

There’s a deadly calm on Anya’s face, now only illuminated by the moon. Gone from moments ago is the anger and the hurt and under that… before that… the flirtation. Raven knows that’s what it was. What this is though has her confused. Something tells her that she’s better off following Anya’s lead.

The tenseness in Anya’s arm stills the rage that Raven can feel boiling inside her. She closes her eyes and listens. It’s there then, soft, creeping footfalls. Someone else is out there.

Anya moves faster than Raven can react to. All she catches is a whispered apology and Anya scoops Raven up and shoves her down and backwards into a hollowed out tree stump. Raven feels the brush of butterfly wings on her skin and she’s afraid to lean back, afraid to put her hands down. Anya’s hands are still on her, holding her closer than she needs to.

A single butterfly starts to glow dimly, crawling up Raven’s hand to alight on Anya’s. It’s enough that Raven can just see the butterflies have made room for them. That she could lean back if only Anya let her go.

Raven can just make out Anya’s silhouette, proud and alert. She’s looking away, back into the clearing, waiting for the individual stalking them. Anya presses something heavy and familiar into Raven’s hands: grenades.

They were some of the few left that she had fashioned. Anya must have had them on her still from the battle at Mount Weather. Raven clutches them tightly, afraid to let them drop.

One of Anya’s hands cups Raven’s cheek even as she looks away her hand on the sword at her waist. Footfalls, quicker now, closer run through the clearing. Small lithe figures in the dark. Their faces almost glow in the dark. Anya’s fingertips dig slightly into the soft muscle below Raven’s ear. It’s protective.

_ Azgeda. _

Lexa’s assumption that the  _ Azgeda  _ attacked Octavia and stole the bombs was right. It has to be them. Another warrior creeps across the clearing, slower and closer to them. Raven narrows her eyes not wanting light reflecting to give them away, though she’s certain her heart thudding in her chest could be heard a mile off. Her eyes flick to Anya, poised, ready to strike, even as her thumb brushes across Raven’s cheek.

Raven purses her lips and holds her breath. It’s too much. One minute they aren’t talking, then Anya is getting her up in the middle of the night and doing something nigh on romantic, and then they’re fighting, and now Anya is protecting her, and the emotional whiplash is more than she can handle. She hasn’t slept more than a few hours in the past four days. Maybe on another day she could hold herself together but she feels her stomach bottom out as the warrior passes by them. 

Anya’s hand drops away and that’s the only warning she has that Anya is leaving her. The message is clear: stay. Anya rushes across the clearing and draws a dagger across the warriors throat. They slip to the floor without a sound. Her steps are silent on the forest floor and she doesn’t even look back as she moves through the trees and back toward camp.

Silence descends upon Raven. 

She lays down in the alcove, curling onto her side but still keeping one eye on the grove. Every shift in the forest around her makes her jump so she lays the grenades one by one within arm's reach. Raven lays there, curled into the hollow of a tree long enough that her body goes stiff with cold.

She can hear the faint sounds of battle far of at the camp and she wonders how far Anya took her, or if the forest somehow dampens the sound.

A faint glow spreads through the trees, dark blue and soft. Raven thinks for a moment that the butterflies might be coming back, reigniting. But the light is further out than just the grove. It’s the sunrise, still far off, but growing closer. It’s enough that she can tell the butterflies are long gone.

Raven wonders briefly what Anya would make of that and her omens.

Footsteps in the forest. Small and light, imperfect. Raven panics and reaches for a grenade. She’s on her feet before pain or sense can stop her. On the other side of the clearing stands someone streaked in white and dark. The dark is blood, and there’s so much of it.  _ Azgeda. _

She doesn’t think just slips the pin from the grenade with her thumb and waits.

One.

Two.

Three. She throws it at them, praying that she left enough time for the bomb to reach them. She stands there, time stretching out, waiting for the explosion.

It happens without any further warning and Raven is knocked onto her back with the force of it.

There is no cry of pain, no strangled surprise, just silence in the wake.

Raven crawls across the clearing halfway to where there’s a hole in the ground with the body inside. Her ears ring so loud that she wonders if she can’t hear, but then again, she doesn’t know if there’s anything left to hear. There’s half a body and a mangled scrap of face that doesn’t look old enough for a sword. The image burns into the back of her eyes and when she turns her head to look away with eyes closed she can’t escape it, nor the scent of charred flesh and rocket fuel. 

What little she has eaten burns the back of her throat as she retches. She coughs and wipes the back of her hand against her mouth. Fuck.

Her mind is a litany of curse words and her thoughts are coming at her too fast to really land on any single thing that is making her heart beat faster and reality slip. It’s slipping too fast to grab onto and all she can do is let it go. 

More bile burns the back of her throat and she spits it out.

Every time she opens her eyes she can’t tear her gaze away from the body.

Every time she closes her eyes she sees it.

“Raven!” The voice that screams her name sounds muffled.

Raven turns, her body heavy and she wonders if she lost time again. It’s brighter than it had been. Clarke is flanked by two  _ Trikru  _ she recognizes as Lexa’s guards but can’t remember their names. 

“What are you doing out here?” Clarke sounds panicked but the emotion is far away and Raven can’t quite get a feel on it. There’s a film between her and reality. Clarke wraps her arms around Raven and pulls her into a hug. The embrace is desperate and relieved. Raven can’t look away from what was an  _ Azgeda _ warrior, they had been no more than a child. Clarke’s arms are fiercely tight around her and Raven is vaguely aware that it hurts. It takes her too long to respond, and it’s only after she feels Clarke’s arms loosen their grip that she returns the embrace.

“Anya.” She answers. It takes her too long to do so but she can’t quite get her brain and reality to sync back up. A kid. Her grenade exploded and killed a kid. She killed a kid. More than just the faceless ones in Mount Weather. This one has half a face.

Raven feels everything and nothing all at once. She’s floating lost in the void of space, except it’s inside her.

“She’s fine, she’s with Lexa.” Clarke pushes Raven to arms length to look at her and Raven turns her head. It feels like slogging through molasses. “Everyone is okay. Anya warned us before they attacked. What were you doing out here?”

Raven flashes back to Anya’s cheek pressed to hers and them snapping at each other. 

None of it feels real.

Clarke runs her hands over Raven’s face. Raven wants to pull away, tell Clarke she’s fine, but she doesn’t. She just stares at the body that was a kid… that would have killed her. Clarke turns Raven’s face until Raven is looking into blue eyes that look black in the dark. There’s a dark streak across her forehead that Raven thinks is blood.

“You’re in shock, Raven.”

Raven feels it then, her body shaking and the distant cold seeping into her skin. It doesn’t matter though, she’s too tired, too beaten. And no matter what way she looks at it, this is all her fault. The reason the  _ Azgeda _ were bold enough to attack was that she created bombs for them to steal. Octavia was hurt for that same reason. They committed accidental genocide, because Raven decided she could play god, giving weapons to those that had no respect for the gravity of them. Raven manages to shrug. “I’m fine, Clarke. I’ll be fine.” Whatever this is, maybe she deserves it for what she’s done. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so off Skaikru go to Polis. The question is then, what will they find when they get there?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I forgot to post this on Friday! I usually sit down and do that on my lunch break but work was insane... and then I crashed and I never got to it. Lots of development though between Raven and Anya in this one though, so hopefully that will make up for the lateness of it ;)

Raven’s neck is crooked and her back is strained. Her face is cold and so are her shins and her body feels like lead. All of it hurts. As she comes to she realizes that she’s moving on the back of a horse and that someone is sat behind her. That someone is tall and willowy and muscled.

“Anya?” Raven’s voice is thick and rough and her throat is scratchy. There’s a familiarity about the body behind her and all she knows is that it is not Clarke. There’s a purr of a response, only a tiny blip of acknowledgement of the questions and an assertion of the assumption therein. She half attempts to sit up but only manages to turn her head. “Where is Clarke?”

Her mouth tastes like cotton.

“Ahead with Lexa and Kane, they discuss plans for  _ Skaikru _ in Polis.” Anya replies but her tone implies her thoughts are far away.

“Is that why I’m…” her voice and thoughts drift and it’s hard to grab the words to finish the sentence.

“With me? In short, yes.” Anya says simple, offering no further explanation.

Raven can feel exhaustion pulling her other but she doesn’t want to fall unconscious again so soon. Her head feels fuzzy and stuffy; she feels sick in ways she hasn’t been since she was young. She doesn’t want Anya to stop talking, even the few words she’s said have been a comforting thrum against her back. “In long?”

“You were unconscious and we discussed creating another stretcher to pull you, but you were worryingly cold. Clarke opted to ride with Lexa so they could more easily discuss plans. Kane took Clarke’s horse, and the snow began to fall. We thought it would be best if you were with one of us.”

Raven realizes the heavy feeling on her arms and chest isn’t only from pain. There’s a fur draped across her and wrapped around Anya leaving them in a cocoon of warmth. “Snow?”

“Yes.”

Raven opens her eyes once more and blinks to focus. It isn’t just the the ringing in her ears that mutes the sound of the army behind them. Nearly a foot of snow, blindingly white, covers the ground and the trees along either side of the wide path. It’s serene and beautiful but she doesn’t have the energy to keep her eyes open to take it in. She turns her head and closes her eyes, hiding her nose against Anya’s neck to warm it. “How long have I been out?” she murmurs, trying to keep the conversation going.

“Since the battle ended this morning. I was starting to worry you would not wake. It’s nearly time for the sun to start setting.” There’s a carefulness in the way Anya talks and Raven misses the ease that they would fall into. Their fight that morning proved that what is passing between them is complicated for both of them. Anya tightens her arm around Raven’s waist, an echo of what they had, whatever it had been. “Clarke said one of the  _ Azgeda _ came for you, one of their child soldiers, that she found you near the body.”

Tears spring to Raven’s eyes and she’s long past fighting them. She lets them drop hot and thick down her cheeks and onto Anya’s shoulder.

“It was you or them,” Anya says firmly. There’s no question that she means it to comfort, but the thought of the child Raven killed is a sharp knife between her ribs. “I am glad it was them,” Anya says in almost a whisper.

Raven lets herself cry. There’s little of Raven’s pain that Anya hasn’t seen and she doesn’t have the energy to stop the tears. Her nose stuffs up and she starts to cough as well. Her breathing feels ragged and a little like fire in her chest. Deep breaths are nearly impossible. She snuggles down into Anya’s embrace as much as she can, trying to stay warm as well as find a position that relieves the pain in her back. She wants to twist in Anya’s arms until she’s cradled like a child, but that’s impossible on horseback. In the side of her mind where nothing is ever quite straight she can’t help but feel that this discomfort and pain will never leave. 

She shivers and wraps her arms around Anya’s, trying to pull her closer. She feels delirious, half in and out of consciousness, not even certain if she’s awake or asleep when Anya brings her other hand that had been holding the reins up to Raven’s forehead. 

“You’re burning up,” she says softly. Gone is the disconnect, the aloofness with which Anya had been holding herself. “You’re pushing yourself to the brink trying to save everyone by yourself.” Anya’s talking more to herself than Raven it seems. Musing out loud. “You can’t save anyone if you keep breaking yourself apart on their behalf. You’re worth so much more.” Anya brushes her hand across Raven’s hair.

Maybe Raven’s imagining it all, and this is nothing more than a fever dream brought on by whatever Earth illness she’s caught that is making her body feel worse than it had. She lets herself believe it’s real though because Anya runs her fingers through Raven’s hair once more and lets her hand rest against Raven’s cheek, her thumb brushing across Raven’s cheekbone. It’s a tenderness her pain riddled body craves. Even when they’re hurting each other, they’re trying not to. 

Anya’s voice is barely more than a whisper, “We’re almost to Polis, Commander of Boom, you’ll be okay, I promise.”

Raven presses her face into Anya’s neck and lets herself drift. The lulling sway of the horse and Anya’s arms encircling her push away what little worry still clings to the forefront of her mind. When she’s awake again she may regret this clinging comfort, but right now she can’t turn away from it. It’s too close to what she wants.

She drifts in and out of consciousness. At time she hears Lexa and Clarke’s voices, Kane and Abby further away. More hands, both warm and cold, press to her forehead, brush her cheek. The tone of their voices is worried but Raven doesn’t have the energy to listen to the words, just the sound. Her neck aches from turning to press her face to Anya’s neck but she doesn’t want to change her position. She knows that soon enough this comfort will be gone and she needs something to cling to.

It feels like days later when Anya turns her head to whisper to Raven. “We’ve arrived, just a little longer before we can get you to bed.”

Raven groans and forces her eyes open. All she sees is a mess of dirty blonde curls and braids. With much more effort that it should take she lifts her head. Anya adjusts her hold on Raven to shift them both in the saddle so that they’re more upright.

They pass through a large gate in a wall that towers over the squat buildings just on the other side of it. The path here is wide enough to ride several abreast, but Anya and Raven enter alone, the others ahead of them, grounders and  _ Skaikru _ riding and walking behind them, heading home or being led in equal measure. There’s a trickle of a crowd gathered on the edges and up on rooftops.

Around them as far as she can see are old buildings, some crumbling some not, covered in snow. Some tower up higher than Raven can see without craning her neck. It’s not what she expected at all. Maybe that’s the snow, but she’d be lying if she expected something so permanent as this for their city. It stretches on and on in every direction, concrete and stone and snow. When she can walk again maybe she’ll be able to really see Polis, but for now all it is to her is a blur of white and grey and the impression of power and permanence.

Despite the cold there are people lining the streets cheering and calling out to Lexa and their train of  _ Skaikru _ . She makes out a few words here and there. Some are pleasant, others are not. 

“They do not want us here do they?” Raven coughs around her words. Anya moves her hand from Raven’s stomach to her sternum to hold her up.

“Some, but others believe the stories that preceded our arrival. What we did at Mount Weather,” Anya answers simply. Some of the barriers are back but not all. If only they could really talk and not face off. Raven knows it won’t happen. There will always be just too much between them, too much inherent distrust, too much fear, too much desire. “ _ Skaikru _ arrives with Lexa. None would dare attack you here.”

“Where will we stay?” Raven looks around, every building has faces peeking out of broken windows warped with time.

Anya doesn’t answer but nudges her horse into a faster pace to catch up with the pack of riders ahead of them. Raven grimaces at the bumpiness of the quicker speed. Her breathing comes in quicker, shallower breaths and she coughs enough to start spitting up phlegm.

“We need to get you clean and fed and warm.”

“Just bed,” Raven murmurs. “Takes too much energy to do the rest.”

Anya tightens her grip on Raven and slows down her horse as she reaches Lexa.

“Hey!” Clarke says brightly as she reaches out to Raven, cupping her cheek. “Look who’s awake.” There’s a cut on Clarke’s cheek and she looks tired, but otherwise fine. Lexa, behind her, is stoic as always, but there’s a softness to her as well.

“Barely,” Raven rolls her eyes. “I feel like death.”

“Lexa says her healers will have something that should help you and the others that have fallen ill.” Clarke presses the back of her hand to Raven’s forehead for a moment before pulling her hand away. She frowns but doesn’t say anything.

“Are the others this bad?”

Raven hears a snort from the other side of Lexa and Clarke that she’s certain is Abby.

It’s Kane that speaks next though, “Most are still walking, though a few are too weak and are being carried to our quarters.”

“Which brings me back to my question, where are we staying. The city seems… full.”

Lexa laughs lightly and there’s a pleased twitch of a smile on Lexa’s lips. “Polis is populous, but we have space enough for _ Skaikru _ . There are several buildings not far from the tower that your people may stay in.”

“Tower?” Raven asks.

Clarke points up above them and Raven turns her head to follow the direction. She catches sight of a massive building further into the city, that goes up, and up, and up. “Holy shit.”

Raven feels Anya laugh more than hears it, a sudden rise and fall of her chest accompanied by an exhalation of air.

“I never imagined buildings could be so tall.” Clarke says. There’s awe in her voice that Raven feels deep down beneath the exhaustion and the illness and the pain. “Is it from before?”

Before the war that ended the world.

“This city withstood The End. It is our sanctuary and will protect us through whatever may come next.” Lexa sounds so incredibly certain that Raven can’t help but want to believe what she says. She wonders if it’s the state she’s in or perhaps she’s finally starting to see what Clarke sees in Lexa. “I would like that the four of you join me in the living quarters of the tower.” Lexa says. “It is customary for emissaries and ambassadors from other clans to stay there. We have plenty of space and your needs will be attended to.

“I don’t like the idea of separating from our people.” Abby says cautiously. “They’ve been through so much already, and I would feel better if we kept an eye on them while we settle into your city. We have been split up too many times already since landing on Earth.”

“I can assure you, they will be safe.” Lexa turns to her other side, away from Raven. 

“If it is custom, then we will be flexible,” Kane says calmly. “We have no intention to be rude, or to be unappreciative of your hospitality.” His voice is firm and Raven knows he means that there will be no further argument against Lexa’s offer. Until they know where they stand, it’s better to play it safe.

Raven watches Lexa nod. She knows she has an opinion somewhere about all of this but it is buried deep beneath the fever and the pain. She lets her head fall to Anya’s shoulder as she watches the others interact and Polis slip by at a meandering pace. 

Pops of color peek through windows, faded and dark but there. Shadows move in dimly lit houses. People crowd around bonfires, passing mugs between them and skewered food as well. Most stand and cheer as Lexa passes. The crowds have thinned from the entrance to the city, but she can hear the rumblings of a large number of people in front of them.

“You will have leave of the city. Anywhere my people may go you will be free to visit.” Lexa assures them. “The upper levels of the tower are only accessible by invitation, so I am afraid that if you want to see your people you will need to go to them for the most part.”

Raven can feel sleep tugging at her again, despite that she has slept for most of the day. She struggles to sit up. Pain shoots through her low back and down her leg and she can’t stop the whimper that escapes her lips. Anya’s fingertips dig lightly into her stomach and hold her down, her thumb brushing across her abdomen. Raven lets herself collapse back into Anya once more. “I understand-” she starts, but her voice is weak and doesn’t carry enough to cut into the conversation taking place beside her. She clears her throat and closes her eyes to gather the strength she needs to be more than pain and sickness.

Anya clears her throat more loudly than Raven and Lexa turns.

Raven knows she has to say something now. A tickle catches her throat and she coughs. “I understand inviting Clarke and Kane and Abby to the tower but why me?” She can barely get through the question without losing her breath. Short shallow gasps make her feel light-headed but she can’t risk breathing deep for fear of a coughing fit.

Anya whispers in her ear so quietly that only she can hear it, “Breathe with me.”

She tries, to slow her breathing, tries to stop the rising feel of panic in her chest, all while focusing on Lexa and her answer. Maybe if she pretends hard enough that her body isn’t failing in that moment she’ll get through. She feels Anya’s breathing deepen and slow and Raven tries to match it, just enough so that she isn’t making herself worse.

Lexa purses her lips and watches Raven who doesn’t miss the way her gaze flicks to Clarke and then to Anya for a moment before answering. “You were a vital part of the success at Mount Weather.”

Raven sucks in a breath, “I’m also a vital part of what has happened since.”

Her mind flicks through every downfall that has passed them since that morning. Octavia’s concussion. The loss of their bomb cache. The attack on the convoy. The child that she killed. There’s a pressure in her eyes that should translate to tears but her exhaustion is heavier than her emotional pain. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head away from Lexa and Clarke, retreating into the safety and warmth of the crook of Anya’s neck, but not before she sees a flare of recognition and understanding on Lexa’s features.

“Raven…” Clarke says softly. 

It tugs at her, those two syllables is all it takes for Clarke to say a hundred things that Raven knows she shouldn’t be doubting, things that at one time she would never have doubted at all. She wants to go back to their friendship the way things were for a brief time when it felt like them against the world trying to save everyone. Alone at night they would curl up in bed to keep each other warm and offer solace from the harshness of the reality of the day. They’re friends and Clarke knows her well enough that all she has to say is Raven’s name and Raven knows the rest.

She doesn’t have the energy for the feelings it brings on so she lets them wash over her. The sounds of the city fade to background noise and Anya’s thumb brushes against her side underneath the furs where no one else can see. She wonders what they look like to the others, with Raven half-conscious and Anya stoic and straight-backed.  She wonders if she looks as terrible as she feels. 

She can hardly breath except through her mouth and her lips are cracked with it and the cold. Her nose is running but she’s too almost exhausted to wipe it when it gets bad. Her body feels heavy and floaty all at once. She cold and damp with sweat. Her back screams in pain but it also feels too far away for her to do anything. Exhaustion sits on top of it all like a terrible excuse for a blanket.

When she opens her eyes once more the tower looms above them. Grey concrete dotted with windows taller than even the tallest of the trees Raven has seen on Earth. The top floors must be nearly inaccessible without power. She tries to count them but loses her train of thought before she gets past ten. The closer they get, the harder it gets to see the top and she turns her wobbly focus out toward the area around them. 

People are starting to gather again. The words that Raven catches are kinder, brighter, some are even in English. It’s nearly sunset and the  path they ride down looks like part of a market as if it’s been closed down for the day or by the snow. The snow is still everywhere, thinner than it had been outside the city, but still covering everything. With the sun nearly down it isn’t quite as blindingly white, but soft and gentle.

The square is crowded and Lexa’s guards move quickly to clear them a path to the base of the tower.  They stand in a semicircle to give them room to dismount. Though Raven watches as Lexa moves deftly to the crowd, taking hands, listening to people speak. She picks up a child and smiles at their story, laughing with them. The people here at the tower are smiles and gifts and gentleness. They call to the few  _ Skaikru _ still in Lexa’s entourage in broken English and offer gifts: blankets, food, drink. 

Most of the  _ Skaikru _ have already been led to their new living arrangements. Kane and Clarke move with Lexa when she gestures to them. They speak with the grounders who want to meet them, thank them for reuniting their families. Raven watches the way Clarke goes from exhausted and slow moving to standing tall and doing her best to hide the truth of it. Lately there has been no rest for any of them

She watches Abby slip away through the crowds with a guard, winding back the way they came to where the others were led, clearly having no desire to play politics after such a long day. Raven still feels out of place here amongst those three, they are leaders, and she is not. As much as she feels out of place with the rest of  _ Skaikru _ sometimes she belongs with them more than she does in this tower.

Anya nudges Raven, “Time to dismount.”

Unfamiliar hands wrap around Raven. She starts to push away as soon as she’s off the horse. She’s been sitting all day, she’ll walk the rest of the way to her bed, and then no further. The grounder sets her gently on the ground and Raven takes a stumbling step away from them, her hand reaching out to let herself lean against the horse that carried her and Anya all day. Without the blanket around her she shivers constantly, despite that she’s been dressed in someone else’s jacket on top of her own.

Raven glances back to the one who helped her to find it was Nyko. Not a complete stranger after all. She nods thanks and looks around to wait for the next move. It’s not like she knows where to go, except for perhaps, up. 

“We don’t need to wait for the others, I can show you the way to your quarters.” Anya steps next to Raven as she dismounts. “That is, if you’re ready to go.”

Raven nods. She shoves both her hands into her pockets trying to shield herself from the cold and takes a few tentative steps. Her legs are wobbly and sore but she doesn’t fall and that’s enough to keep her moving forward. She tries to keep her gaze down, focused on what she’s doing, but Anya is at her side, speaking softly with guards and attendants as they move into the tower.

The room they enter is barely warmer than outside and Raven wonders if anything in the tower is heated at all. What little she saw on her way in indicated electricity. She smelled more woodsmoke than anything. She breathes in as deeply as she dares and looks around.

Grey stone is sparsely decorated, a wooden platform lies beyond a rectangular archway. She follows Anya without a word toward it, not really certain where they’re going as the room the platform is in is no larger than the platform. Raven glances to Anya to ask and Anya simply points up. No stairs. Raven closes her eyes in gratitude. She’s barely managed the walk inside, even a single flight of stairs would have taken her out.

The lift goes up slowly but steadily. Raven lose count of the floors they pass by. Hallways, open rooms looking out over the city, kitchens, libraries, workshops, living quarters. She leans against the railing and looks up. The shaft goes up and up and up. Above her at the top is a light, not quite open to the sky beyond, but perhaps to the roof somehow. It’s impossible, too high to move without electricity.

“How does the lift move?” Raven asks slowly.

“Manpower,” Anya answers without looking to her or breaking her guarding stance.

Raven turns the idea over in her head. Actual men powering the elevator, lifting them up more floors than Raven has been able to count on that day. Her mind is slipping away in the sickness, a scientist who can’t focus, can’t count. She wants the promise of the bed that waits for her. Furs and something not hard and lumpy, anything that isn’t the ground, anything that isn’t cold. 

She stumbles as the lift comes to a halt. Anya reaches out to steady her but lets her go just as quickly. For once she knows she would have happily collapsed into Anya’s arms, instead she follows behind her as best she can. Left, three doors, right, two doors then on the left. She forgets as quickly as she set the pattern in her mind. 

Anya pushes open a heavy wooden door and steps aside to let Raven pass. Raven realizes that this floor is warmer than the bottom floor, and her room is warmer still. She assumes it’s where she’ll be staying. Heavy curtains cover the far wall, what must be windows. One is uncovered and Raven can make out the colors of the setting sun through the blur of old glass. She can smell a fire burning somewhere. There’s a bed behind a partition and a seating area and several dressers. There’s even a tall table with a high stool with a back. She pauses and turns. There are other rooms as well that she has no desire to explore.

Anya pauses in the doorway to Raven’s room as if she’s hesitant to entire.

Raven watches her, too tired to stand on ceremony, or cultural differences, or propriety. “You’ve been holding my sick ass all day,” she pauses to catch her breath and cough in equal measure. “You can come into my room.”

Anya takes a few unsure steps inside. “I need to go to Lexa. There are plans to be made regarding what happened on our way home, we must make arrangements to send for the ambassadors of the twelve clans.”

Home. The thought hits like a punch to her gut. This place she doesn’t know is all they have left. Even Arkadia is lost to them. Maybe one day, if she felt like she belonged it would be home to her, if she was needed. Right now it doesn’t feel like much of anything but something foreign and as cold and unforgiving as space.

“Of course,” Raven can’t keep the sinking feeling inside her from showing on her face. “You’re Lexa’s General first.”

“I am,” Anya’s voice is strained as if in that moment the truth isn’t what she wants, not that truth anyway.

“You have more important matters to attend to than a sick  _ skaigada _ .” It’s easier to push Anya away. She’s up and awake and her head feels clearer than it has all day, though it’s far from clear.

Anya averts her gaze and when she turns back to Raven there’s something between them again. Her gaze is guarded. “Let the handmaidens attend to you, they will send for a healer once you have bathed and eaten.” She takes a few steps backward as if she doesn’t want to turn to go. She stops in the doorway once more, half looking like she wants to cross the space between her and Raven. Were it not for the fear that her knees would give way Raven isn’t sure she wouldn’t cross it herself. “I do not understand why you doubt your worth Commander of Boom.”

No ceremony. No explanation. Anya simply turns and leaves Raven with a hundred questions and the heaviness of the pain and sickness rattling her body. She’s acutely aware of its severity now that Anya isn’t there to catch her as she falls.

She leans her back against the edge of the dresser she had been leaning on, afraid to try to make it toward the chairs or the bed because she doesn’t think she’ll make it, even at a crawl. Watching Anya leaves hurts for too many reasons and she can’t find the strength to move. There’s an ache in her chest she can’t ignore that has nothing to do with the fever and the cough. It’s a fear that they’ll never be able to get them right, that all they have will be stolen moments between the war and the politics and the misunderstandings. A fear that they’ll never be right for each other despite what Raven wants.

Because when she isn’t fighting herself she knows that Anya is who she wants to be with.

When the handmaidens come to fetch her she lets the lead her away. She doesn’t fight as they help her walk, or when they help her undress. She lets them wash her hair because she’s gone, too deep in her head trying to take herself back to the place where she felt safe in Anya’s arms with Anya gently cradling her face and whispering to her. She stays there in her memory letting it build up a thick film between her consciousness and reality.

She’s a ruin of a person and the weight of the trials of Earth have crushed her. The pieces of her are too small, bits and pieces and remnants of who she once was. She knows from history that this is where she becomes forgotten. This is where she ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you don't follow me on tumblr, you should come join the fun, i'm working on some prompts this weekend and hope to post a few more today! I'm dreamsheartstory over there too!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you all for being so patient while I got through the next chapter of this fic. I tried to pick back up writing both _Letters_ and this at the end of my hiatus but my brain wasn't letting me focus on both with everything else I had going on. I've finished _Letters_ now though and I'm working (slowly) on finishing up Ruins. I don't know if I'll be able to stick to a posting schedule but I'll try to be somewhat consistent about updates.

Raven spends the next few days in a feverish haze not quite certain if time is passing or if that is only her imagination. She’s trapped in a warmth, her body floating, or perhaps she’s laying on something soft - softer than anything she’s ever slept on. Her body aches but the pains are far away. Maybe her body is too. 

Her thoughts escape her grasp, flitting by like the sunlight filtered through the trees. Nothing stays for long, but she replays moments from the past few months on loop. Anya’s smile is a persistent recurrence. She can’t help it, there had been so few times that Raven had truly seen it blossom on her face that the precious moments it had Raven felt as if the sun had shown on them to grow into that instant.

She tells herself it’s the drugs in her system and then floats away in the memory of Anya’s arms around her as they slept the night before the rescue at Mount Weather.

Mostly when she starts to surface there is someone she doesn’t recognize. The hands are unfamiliar and their touch is clinical. Once or twice she hears Abby across the room, but never near her bed. When the others come she’s never awake for long. Not that she can really call what she does waking. Her body is too heavy to move, even her eyelids seem weighed down. 

Waking starts to seem like the dream, something she imagined once in her fugue state. Though at times she brushes up against the surface of consciousness. The back of her eyelids seems red and Raven knows that means that it’s bright in her room. There’s noises around her small movements, a scuffle and some kind of soft landing.

“Octavia!” Clarke chastises, “What are you doing up here?”

Raven fights against the fog but it’s thick and impenetrable, while she can hear her friends she can’t make any kind of indication to that fact. It’s surreal as it is frustrating especially as she feels her attention flag and drift before she can get ahold of it.

“Seeing Raven,” Octavia answers.

The weight of the bed shifts and Raven struggles to wake up, see which of her friends has sat down, but it’s too much and whatever the person who had tended to her last had dripped into the corner of her mouth had left her body heavy and her mind thick.

“I can see that,” there’s a hint of a laugh. “She’s been asleep for a week.”

“Lincoln said they were probably giving her something to keep her asleep,” Octavia pauses. When she continues her voice is softer and closer. “I’m worried Clarke.”

Raven feels a hand against her forehead followed by knuckles brushing against her cheek. She knows then that it’s Clarke that has sat down on the bed as Clarke tucks hair behind Raven’s ear. “You know you aren’t allowed up here.”

Octavia scoffs and there’s a small scrape against the floor. Raven assumes she’s settled in to sit there by the bedside. “As if they could keep me from being somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. I’m the girl who survived, hid under the floor for sixteen years.” The edge of the bed presses down again with a soft weight. “Besides, your girlfriend likes me.”

Clarke clears her throat but her voice still comes out in a squeak. “She’s not…”

“Don’t pretend with me especially when I didn’t even say Lexa’s name and you assumed I meant our  _ Heda _ .”

“It’s complicated,” Clarke whispers.

“At least that’s honest.”

Raven feels a second hand reach out and squeeze her arm then take her hand. She wills her fingers to curl but she feels no change in her body, no indication of fingertips pressed to someone else’s skin.

“Do you think she knows I don’t blame her?” Octavia whispers. “For the bomb?”

“I’m sure she knows, O.” Clarke says. “You can ask her when she wakes up.”

Raven feels the drift start to pull at her again. She wants to wake up even though she can feel the edges of pain creeping in and her lips are cracked and her breathing feels labored. She sucks in a breath and coughs, her whole body convulsing with it. Sharp pain flares in her chest and back and tears stream down her face.

Clarke pulls her to a sitting position, cradling her, and Raven has no choice in the matter. She lets herself be held, knowing that the pain and the fog in her head will pull her back under. There will be something, even as her consciousness fights to break through.

She hates it completely and utterly. She’s powerless to do anything so she stops fighting and collapses into Clarke, blotting out the world. All she can feel are the vibrations in Clarke’s chest as she talks to Octavia. Cold glass is pressed to the corner of her mouth, a thin tube, and a liquid dropped in the corner. Raven has no choice but to swallow the bitterness.

It hits like a wall a few seconds later. The pain recedes and the fog rolls in. 

Raven’s mind scrambles to stay awake but the more she fights the worse it gets. 

She reaches for the threads of her friends voices, anything to stay in the moment, but with each word she feels them further and further away.

“So Lincoln, he’s doing okay?”

“You mean after Abby nearly killed him to…”

“She was resetting whatever the Maunon had done.”

“I know.”

Then, nothing.   
  
* * *   
  


Raven isn’t certain she’s awake, just as she’d been feeling like she might be able to regain consciousness fully someone had pressed the glass tube to the corner of her mouth to dribble water in. She swears she can hear Anya whispering softly in trigedasleng.

It could be hours or minutes later when she feels a soft touch against her cheek. It’s gentle and familiar, the fingers rough and calloused. There’s only one person she knows that feels like that, and maybe it’s a dream and a wish, but she’s certain it’s Anya.

Anya, or the ghostlike memory of her, leans over to press her forehead against Raven’s. Her breath is warm and her words are too soft to reach her ears. Raven breathes in a sharp hint of mint. She’s certain that if she could move, or open her eyes, that Anya would be close enough to kiss. The thought quickens her heart and she throws all she can behind the idea of moving, just tipping up her chin or lifting her hand, anything. The frantic beating of her heart drags her down into a panic, because what if she can’t move and what if being trapped like this is all she will ever know.

Awake, but not awake, unable to move, a heavy weight on her chest that paralyzes her limbs.   
When Anya sits up she feels cold, as if the warmth and good has gone with her. Raven wants to scream with frustration because she can feel the pull of sleep and she’s too weak to let Anya know that she knows she’s there.

There’s a shift and a small pop of clarity, but it’s only soft. Raven pulls one sandpaper lined eye open. Her lips part, dry skin sticking together and tearing. Anya is, at best, a soft blurry figure just past her fingertips. She knows it’s her though, the rigidness of her back, the blonde mess of hair.

Raven tries to speak, a rough sound escaping her throat. Anya reaches for her and turns away to call for someone else.

Raven doesn’t know how she knows but she does, the person will come with something to make her sleep again and she desperately wants to be awake. She closes her eyes, and tries to shake her head no. She can’t tell if she’s moved or not.

Anya brushes the hair back from her face and her hands linger on Raven’s cheeks. Her touch is cool and comforting and Raven wants her to stay. If she were more awake she would cry but she can’t breathe in deep, or scrunch her face or anything that might indicate an emotion. It’s as if her mind has been disconnected from her body.

Raven wills herself to calm. She knows it’s a dream and that when she wakes for real this will fade and she’ll have been alone.   
  
  
* * *   
  


Raven wiggles her fingers and is surprised to find that they move. She feels the sheets glide and catch on her knuckles. Her body feels as if it’s been weighted to the bed and there’s a roughness to her existence but for the first time since they left the camp on the hill Raven feels fully in it. She cracks one eye open and then the other, the dim light of the room is blinding.   
Candles piled on tables and counters provide the only light. Everything is still soft and fuzzy. Across from where she lays is someone perched in a chair with a book. Raven blinks once more and wills the world to come into focus: Lexa. There’s a strange sensation in her stomach that it’s

Lexa waiting by her bedside the moment that she wakes. It brings a hundred questions to her sleep addled mind. How long has she been out? Has someone been watching her this whole time? Where are the  _ Skaikru _ ? Had Lexa known she would wake? And if not how has Lexa justified spending her time watching over Raven? Who else has been by her bedside?

She pushes away the thoughts that start to creep toward Anya.

The fever dream comes back to her, and it feels too real.

With her hands and forearms flat on the mattress she tries to sit up. Her muscles clench and strain and she grunts with the effort of it, which turns into a cough and her painfully collapsing flat on the mattress. She curls onto her side, her knees coming to her forehead as she coughs and shakes. Her throat is raw, each cough rasping and scraping across the back of it, her skin threatening to rip off and tinge the phlegmy ball that she’s hacking up red with blood.

“Careful,” Lexa’s voice is gentle and soothing, her touch even moreso as she presses a cool cloth to Raven’s forehead.  “You’ve been quite ill.” She brushes the cloth across Raven’s face and down around to the back of her neck.

“Been?” Raven coughs again. Her body still feels as if it’s under attack.

“I've not seen someone so ill with the winter cold before, though you were not the only  _ Skaikru _ to be bedridden. It does seem that your people are particular weak against some of our more common ailments.”

“Did you visit their bedsides as well?” Raven tries to sit again and Lexa reaches out to help.

“May I?”

Raven nods and lets Lexa hold her upright as she stuffs a mountain of pillows behind her. If she doesn’t want to be supine it’s the only choice she has at the moment. There’s a snap in her focus as if the veil of fog lifts further suddenly, the furthest away it’s been since she was put to bed. It’s as if she bursts through a wall and she can push past the exhaustion that has kept her immobile. 

“I did visit the others, but I’ve been waiting for the sleeping draught to wear off so we could speak.” Lexa steps back and pulls the chair she had been sitting in to the edge of the bed.

Raven adjusts herself and tries to find a comfortable position; there is none. Every way she lays puts pressure on her body, and every bit of pressure is pain. “You drugged me.” 

“It was necessary,” Lexa says simply. “Each time you woke you insisted on getting up. Abby and Nyko agreed it was for the best that you be kept in bed. You had a low grade infection in the incision on your back, the winter cold, as well as… shock, that is what Clarke called it. The healers agreed that your health necessitated the rest.”

“It was hell,” Raven narrows her eyes. She may be upright and able to think and move but it’s only just. She doesn’t know if it’s the sleeping draught or the illness. Beyond that she can’t remember fighting to get out of bed, just fever dreams of her friends and of Anya and the overwhelming sensation that she would be trapped forever in her body which refused to respond to her.

Lexa chooses her words carefully, “For that I am… sorry. I can assure you though that you’re past the worst of it and in a day or two you should be well enough for short excursions from bed.”

“Don’t be disappointed if I’m not ecstatic about the prospect.” Raven crosses her arms and waits. There’s a heaviness inside her that has nothing to do with the sickness or the drugs. There’s a shadow following her, reminding her that she’s more of a liability than anything. The sturdy walls and soft bed only hide the fact that without the kindness and mercy of everyone around her she would be dead. There’s a part of her that feels perhaps the others would be better off without her. A smaller part of her, the part of her that feels like herself says that’s absolute bullshit. 

She’s too tired to ponder either reality.

Lexa leans forward, her forearms resting atop her knees, “I have an offer for you.”

Raven raises an eyebrow but she can’t imagine something that she’d actually want. She wants to feel whole again, to be able to walk without pain, and as powerful as she is that isn’t something Lexa can do.

“There’s an old workshop that’s kept in my private greenhouse, only those of high rank in our religious order are allowed to enter… as well as a select few that I have appointed.” Lexa clenches her fists but doesn’t let her gaze waver. “It would be unheard of for an outsider to enter, but we have need of your expertise.”

Raven’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach and she fights the urge to curl up and roll away from Lexa. “You need me to build more bombs.”

“No,” Lexa shakes her head and purses her lips as if she’s struggling to find the right thing to say. “There are other  _ Skaikru _ that learned that task,  _ if _ we have need of it.” She reaches out a hand but lets it drop, instead straightening up, her back rigid in the chair. “The workshop is filled with  _ tek _ from before the First Commander. I would like you to work with the initiates to determine what of the relics may be of use.”

“Are you telling me or asking me to do this.” Raven asks warily. There’s no discerning what has happened since they arrived in Polis or how long it’s been and that Lexa is the first person she’s talked to since Anya left doesn’t sit right with her.

Lexa purses her lips and Raven watches her hold back an eye roll that she’s seen directed at Clarke before. “It has been pointed out that you would not react well to me giving you an order, and truth is, I would like this workshop to become yours because you have want of it and use for it. We have no one with the knowledge to take advantage of it, and only our most devout are comfortable with  _ tek _ to begin with but none have training in its use. It’s what destroyed the world of the First Commander and it is often met with fear and awe.” 

Lexa’s shoulders drop slightly and she scoots forward in the chair. Raven thinks for a moment she might take Raven’s hand, but even though the girl that is Lexa, and her tenuous friend emerges where the  _ Heda _ had been, Lexa keeps her hands to herself. “So I’m offering this to you, but if you would like it to have purpose, help me find a way to win this war with the  _ Azgeda _ . Winter will be harsh and not just because they bring with them the strength of a glacier. I will fight the war, but my people will need protection as well.”   
  
* * *   
  
  
Raven finds herself sleeping not long after Lexa leaves. Her head is thick and heavy with darkness, the kind that comes fraught with worry. She has nightmares of a different sort, each times she touches consciousness all she feels is the weight of dread and the sobering reality of where her body has left her.

When she wakes again with the sunlight soft through the windows and a sense of wonder that she can move her body when she wills it, even if it is weak with disuse. The memory of the conversation with Lexa is vivid and that’s the only proof she has that any of it was real.

She blinks and that veil from partially asleep to awake starts to lift. She pushes up onto her side with a grimace, her muscles straining to hold her weight after far too long drugged and asleep in bed. Her arms shake and there’s a weakness that only comes after her body has been ill. On one hand she can count the number of times she’s felt like this in her life, half of them have been on Earth.

A hand slips under her back and she blinks up into a mess of blonde hair and a familiar warmth. Raven lets herself sag against Clarke, allowing her friend to hold her up as her own energy gives out. “Is it morning?” she asks groggily.

“Unfortunately.” Clarke murmurs with a hint of amusement in her voice.

Raven rights herself, now that she’s upright she feels like she can hold herself up. Clarke slips from her side, kneeling on the floor next to the bed, her forearms resting next to Raven’s legs. She looks almost as tired as Raven feels.

“Lexa visited me yesterday.” There’s no point in pretense. She wants to know what is going on, and she knows Clarke will tell her, especially as they’re alone. “How long have I been out? And why do I feel like I’ve missed a lot… also that Lexa maybe doesn’t want anyone else to know about what we talked about.”

Clarke scrunches her mouth to the side like she’s debating her answer.“You’ve been out a week and a half.”

“You’re fucking kidding,” Raven sputters.

“I wish I were,” Clarke lets her top half collapse onto Raven’s bed for all of three seconds before she gets up and moves, crawling over Raven to prop up more pillows to lay next to her. She toes off her already untied boots and drops them off the edge of the bed before she slips under the blanket. “It’s been a very long week and a half.”

Raven snuggles down and lays her head against Clarke’s shoulder, thankful for the familiar warmth and comfort. She closes her eyes but feels sleep pull at her the moment she does, so she snaps them open and tries to keep focused. “Fill me in on the highlights? How did I end up the resident technology expert? Why didn’t you make them wake me up?”

She feels Clarke swallow and stiffen but after a few breaths sigh heavily. She turns her head and presses a kiss to the side of Raven’s. “I’m sorry Lexa blindsided you with that, I was supposed to be here with you… her… I was supposed to be here to help explain everything.”

“Are you and her still…”

Clarke nods, “That’s like the one good thing from the past week.”

Raven searches out Clarke’s hand under the blankets even as Clarke wraps her arm around Raven and pulls her closer. They’ll never not be this, too many nights spent cold and afraid and struggling to find anyone else they could trust means there’s a bond between them that friendship feels too weak a word for.

She squeezes Clarke’s hand, “So  _ good _ good?” There’s a hint of a laugh in her voice and the tickle of it starts off a coughing fit.

Clarke taps Raven upside the head gently and shushes her. “Careful there, Reyes, otherwise your innuendo is going to land you back in the med bay. Besides, it’s not like I’m the only one that’s found themselves mingling with our supposed enemy.”

“Octavia and Lincoln, we all knew that.”

“Anya has been by your bed every day.”

Raven’s throat tightens and she doesn’t know what to say at that. How does she say anything at all. There hasn’t been anything between them. That’s a lie and she knows it. She can still feel the warmth and the swell of Anya’s breast pressed to her back as they cuddled in the tent, the strength of her arms as she carried Raven, the softness in her voice and the brush of her breath as she whispered to Raven about the butterflies, the way it had been Anya who carried her safely into Polis.

She remembers fighting with Anya about having to leave. She also remembers the ghost like dream of Anya pressing her forehead to Raven’s and whispering to her. She swallows down the lump in her throat and closes her eyes once more. “Tell me what happened while they kept me asleep.”

“ _ Azgeda _ is plotting a coup. A third of those that marched with us to  _ Polis _ have turned back for Arkadia, leaving us with a very small contingent of our people, mostly the Hundred that were exiled, my mother, Kane, a few other loyal to them. It’s been snowing nearly every day. Half of  _ Skaikru  _ has had hypothermia, a quarter are too sick to work, a handful have had frostbite.” Clarke sounds bone weary. “And it isn’t just  _ Skaikru _ that are struggling with the cold.”

“Ah, so nothing much at all.” Raven sighs heavily. “Is this what Lexa wasn’t saying, that she wanted me to find some way to keep people from freezing? How cold is it out there?”

Imminent war from all sides, not even the ground will grant them safety with the onslaught of winter.

“Remember that one time the heating unit went out on Mecha station?”

“Shit.”

“Lexa says it’s going to get colder when the snow stops.”

“Fuck.”

“You’re eloquent today.”

“As ever.” Raven huffs and snuggles down against Clarke’s side. Her tone may be light be she doesn’t feel it. There’s too much death and destruction hanging over them, following in their wake. “What do we do now?”

“We survive.”   
  
* * *   
  


The conversation with Clarke lasts a few more hours and takes them through breakfast, though they both stay nestled under the covers and Raven begins to feel the nip of the cold in the air even though the room is kept heated by a fire. By the end of it Raven is exhausted and collapses back onto the bed… her bed. She realizes it’s hers, that this room is hers, that whether she wants it or likes it, this is home now. It’s the last thought she has before sleep, real sleep, pulls her under once more.

The nightmares come then, without the drug to keep her asleep and too deep to remember, her imagination runs rampant. The child’s face white with paint and red with blood, most of it missing. She wakes with whispers of it in her ears, the truth of what she’s done, and that without her none of this would have happened.

She screams.

The choice she made may have been necessary to save her own life, but maybe she isn’t worth saving.

It takes her three more days to build up the energy to leave her room.

There’s a dread that’s come back over her that was there before she’d been sick. Instead of wallowing in it she wants to fight it, but it takes everything she has to push through it. There’s a physical force of will and an unprecedented amount of energy she expels to convince her feet to walk out the door and into the hall.

It didn’t matter that Clarke visited at meal times; though Raven is certain it’s only to ensure she ate something. She knows without someone there to eat with her and nudge her toward the decision she would have curled up in bed and ignored the offering. Dried meats and berries and thin stews made with foreign vegetables were almost more than she could handle.

In those three days Raven doesn’t see Anya once despite Clarke assuring her that she had been by Raven’s bed every day when she had been kept asleep.

Raven picks her way slowly down the hallway. Her leg is weaker now than it’s ever been from the disuse, and the rest of her body is too exhausted to compensate for it. She frowns to herself, a heavy grimace as she faces that this is her reality. There may be no bouncing back from this. There may be a slow crawl to a plateau, but the pain will always be there and if she pushes too hard it will come crashing back.

She moves slowly and each step is excruciating, not for the pain it causes but for what it represents.

The tower is quieter than she expects it to be, but perhaps it’s just the floor that she’s on or the time of day. It’s past breakfast, but prior to lunch and she’s been alone all morning which is unusual. There has always been someone who comes to bring breakfast, insisting to the handmaidens that flutter about that they can take care of things for Raven. She’s caught snippets that they’re there on Lexa’s orders and they really can’t not, but usually they are mollified by the job of ensuring Raven eats and rests is taken care of.

One of the tower staff rounds a corner and Raven glowers at them. She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself, it’s what she’s been doing as long as she can remember. The feeling of not enough and too much and not worth it burns in her and lights up a rage that she hates. There’s no direction for it even though she knows she’ll lash out at anyone that passes by her.

Raven snaps that she wants to go to the ground floor to the elevator attendant and limps into the contraption. She has only the vaguest memory of ascending the tower on their arrival, it’s tinged with the disappointment that Anya had left her side. After hours pressed together it felt almost as if the grounder had needed to distance herself from Raven’s need for help.

She leans heavily against the wall as the slow descent starts, sagging into it with a weariness she didn’t know she could possess. Her body is already aching to return to bed but she’s determined to make it to the greenhouse and see what Lexa has entrusted to her. She pushes the energy of the rage into keeping herself upright. 

She’s tired of being angry. It’s as if she’s been made at something since she crashed to Earth, longer than that even. It’s exhausting. 

The elevator rumbles to a jolt and nearly knocks Raven off her feet. Straightening up and steeling her nerves she makes her way out onto the ground floor. Halfway there.

Raven looks around the anti-chamber of the tower. One door clearly leads outside, but Raven doesn’t know if she should choose that direction or turn down one of the many hallways she hadn’t noticed on her entrance two weeks ago. She’s too stubborn to ask one of the guards for answers so she stands, wishing for something to lean on or a stronger brace for her leg, and waits for intuition to point her in the right direction.

Then again, her sense of direction hadn’t really led her to any expected places since she arrived on the ground. First a friendship with Clarke, then a tenuous one with Anya, there’d been the day she got in Murphy’s way, and the one where she decided it she could build a bomb. She and her friends were alive but she still hasn’t reconciled the cost with the reality.

Bile pricks at the back of her throat and she swallows it down.

“Lost, Commander of Boom?” Anya’s voice is sweet and teasing all at once but Raven flinches at the nickname. Before her eyes are fully open again, Anya is at her side, hands hovering over her arm as if she’s waiting for permission to help. “Raven?”

Her name is gentle concern on Anya’s tongue and she swallows down the desire to find out what it tastes like.

Raven gives her a weak flicker of a smile, “I’m fine.” Another lie. 

“Perhaps I could escort you to your destination?” Anya offers dropping her hands to her sides.

Raven bites the inside of her lip and wishes she could take back the words, just so she could feel Anya’s touch again and know if everything that happened was real or just something she imagined because she had been in pain and ill. Instead she straightens up and tries to push the memories aside. “How do I get to Lexa’s greenhouse?”

There’s a flash of smile in Anya’s eyes, “Officially, outside, through the snow and to the west.”

“Unofficially?” Raven quirks an eyebrow.

She swears she sees Anya wink but it’s there and gone before she can process it.

“Follow me.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know it's been a hot minute and a half since I updated this fic. I promise it hasn't been abandoned. For those of you that haven't been following the fun on tumblr I've been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia which has been the reason my writing output has slowed drastically this past six months. Still here though, still kicking, still writing. Hope you haven't forgotten this story. These two useless gays still have to sort their shit out (I promise they will before I'm done)...

Anya turns quickly and walks toward one of the tapestries on the wall. Raven watches as Anya glances to either side and all the guards look away, stepping slightly more in front of each door and passageway. Anya pulls back the tapestry and pushes at the wooden wall behind it which swings open easily. Raven hurries to catch up. She slips past Anya into the dark corridor beyond.

She pauses after a few steps not trusting herself or her footing in the dim. Far down the hall there’s the familiar crinkle of weak electric light. Raven tips her head to the side. Nowhere in Polis has she seen any signs of electricity before this.

Anya brushes past her and Raven feels the slightest curl of fingertips around her arm, so light that she doesn’t swear it isn’t her imagination.

“Do you still trust me?” The words are barely more than a whisper.

“That seems like a rather moot point by now.” Raven doesn’t make to follow.

Anya whirls and closes what little distance there is between them. White flashes around her eyes as she advances. Her gaze flicks to the fallen tapestry and what lays beyond. There are ears in Polis. She leans over Raven, close enough for a lover’s caress, but this is a thousand miles away from that.

“I need to know.”

Raven tips her head to meet Anya’s nearly frantic gaze. This is the most unnerved she’s ever seen the grounder warrior. She keeps her voice steady. “I’m here, okay?”

“I’m not asking for my sake, I know where we stand.” Anya swallows thickly but doesn’t back up.

“And where is that?” Raven can feel the heat radiating from Anya in the chilly hallway.

Anya purses her lips and sucks on her teeth.

Raven lets the question drop even though the need for an answer burns at her. “Whose sake are you asking for then?”

“Lexa’s. It is my duty to protect her, and this…  _ you _ … This could topple everything.” Anya mutters something in  _ Trigedasleng  _ that Raven doesn’t quite catch. She spins on her heel and starts back down the hall. “Beyond what Clarke is asking, the foolish girl.”

“What is it that Clarke wants?” Raven limps after Anya.

“For Lexa to end the war without bloodshed.”

“What war?”

“The one your people started when you came to the ground.”

“Crashed. We crashed.” Raven reaches out for Anya and catches her wrist. A desperate need to be understood twists in her gut.

Anya wrenches out of her grasp. “It matters little to the dead.”

“It matters a hell of a lot to the living!”

Raven’s harsh whisper echoes down the hall fading between them like dried blood flaking: soft and gentle yet underscored by pain.

Anya’s shoulders tense. She tips her head, her focus shifting back to Raven but she doesn’t turn. Her voice is soft. “Can I trust you to keep quiet?”

“Why don’t you quit asking me about trust and see what happens. Maybe I’ll surprise you.” Raven clenches her teeth.

Anya huffs and whirls back around. She’s halfway as far as Raven can see by the time Raven has found her legs and started to move once more. She can just hear Anya muttering under her breath in  _ Trigedasleng _ , something that sounds distinctly like  _ that was never something I doubted _ .

They pass through another archway covered by a heavy black cloth and Anya smacks her hand against a panel on the wall. Dim orangey light flickers to life. Raven glances behind her to the hallway, the lone bulb seems dim and distant.

She hasn’t seen evidence of a power grid, but the whirr of a generator is faint, as if it’s hidden deeper in the tower. Raven pauses in the archway and takes in the sight before her. The glow of the old tungsten bulbs casts an orange-yellow haze across everything. Metal scraps lay in heaps against the walls, some of it recognizable, potentially useful, some of it no more than junk.

“You have electricity?” Raven hesitates. It’s been months since she’s seen reliable electric lighting. And while this looks finicky, it’s a start. There’s hope that there might be something sustainable. Lexa asked for her help knowing there was a chance.

“Only in the sanctuary.” Anya answers.

“The what?”

Anya gestures around them as if to answer. “The inner sacred sanctum of our religious.”

Raven bites her tongue. The grounders she had met had faced technology with skepticism and fear. Even as the  _ Maunon _ had attacked they had refused to touch the guns offered them. A hundred questions burn on the back of her throat.

Movement on the far corner of the room keeps them burning. 

A woman lifts her head briefly but not to acknowledge their entrance or their conversation. She taps a finger to the center of her forehead and dips back down, pressing her forehead to the mat she kneels on.

Raven watches, as curious as she is wary. She remembers flashes of videos from the ark, people of Earth-before praying at shrines. It was something the  _ Skaikru _ didn’t do. There was no time for prayers to gods that didn’t exist, no reward for the labor given. The closest they had was the their Unity Day celebration and the moments of silence following the Traveller’s Blessing.

Lately there had been to many silent moments.

She takes a few hesitant steps into the room feeling out of place. This is not a space for her and the discomfort that creeps along her spine has nothing to do with her injury. Raven knows when she is somewhere unwanted.

Anya shifts and clears her throat. “Gaia.”

“You know you’re not supposed to cut through here to get to the greenhouse,” is Gaia’s curt reply made from her supplicant position on the floor.

Anya rolls her eyes, “I’m not. I’ve brought her down to speak with you on our way to the greenhouse.”

Gaia sits back on her heels but doesn’t turn to them, continuing with the ritual motions of her prayer. “This is a terrible idea.”

“This is what your  _ Heda _ commands.” Anya says through gritted teeth. She glances sideways at Raven, “That is, if Raven wants it.”

“The people will never allow her work to be used, she doesn’t understand, she isn’t one of us.” Gaia bows again and returns to a seated position one last time before she rolls to her feet in one fluid motion.

“She’s from the ark.”

“So they say.” Gaia looks over Raven. Her eyes narrow but her expression is blank as if she’s looking over some kind of bauble brought her by a well meaning dog.

“Gaia, you were with us as we watched the ark fall from the sky, just as the First Commander said it would one day.”

Gaia presses her lips together in a thin line and narrows her eyes at Anya. “It wasn’t as foretold.”

It only takes a moment but Gaia is across the room, her hand on her dagger and she’s pressed into Anya’s space with a sneer on her lips. Raven takes a few stumbling steps forward not certain what she will do. Anya holds up a hand to halt her progress.

“Use the dagger or back up,” she growls.

Gaia shifts back and drops her hands to her sides once more with a harsh exhalation of air. Anya pushes off the table pursues her, step for step across the room. “Your  _ Heda _ gave you an order. You’ll follow it, and you’ll do whatever Raven says.”

“She doesn’t understand our ways.” Gaia points the dagger at Raven.

“Then teach her,” Anya snarls.

  
  
  


“The others,” Raven starts, “The grounders… they don’t know about this place do they?”

“It’s  _ sacred _ ,” Gaia glares at Raven, still brandishing the dagger. “Only the initiated are to be allowed in.”

Raven looks sideways at Anya. Every moment feels like a revelation.

Anya holds up her hands in mock defense, “My second was a  _ natblida _ , I had no choice.”

“Blasphemy.” Gaia spits on the ground halfway between where Anya and Raven stand. She stalks back off to the far end of the room and kneels once more on the dusty rug. All the while she mutters to herself. “I’ll do as my  _ Heda _ commands as is required of my position. If she wills that this one is taught then I will teach.”

The words aren’t for Raven and she doesn’t reply to them. There is little point in talking to Gaia just then. Raven turns to Anya, “This is to be my workshop?”

“Not in the slightest.” Anya sighs heavily with an angry look at Gaia’s back. “You’re to have free access to anything here as well as any help from Gaia or her initiates that you need.”

There’s a grunt from the far side of the room.

“She won’t refuse a direct order, both Titus and Lexa have instructed her to allow you freedom.”

“This won’t be a problem?” Raven probes. The  _ Skaikru’s _ position under Lexa’s protection had always felt tenuous at best. This cracked any hope she had that Polis would solidify that protection.

Anya gives a Gallic shrug and turns to what Raven had thought nothing more than a tapestry on the wall. She lifts it aside to show the tunnel behind it. This is starting to explain how the handmaidens seem to come and go without making a sound.

“You’re to have Lexa’s workshop,” Anya explains. “It’s more well known, less sacred, but also more private.”

The hallway branches and Anya takes the left fork. The further they walk the warmer the air becomes. They turn three more times before the always same tunnels spill into an indoor jungle. 

The air is nearly humid on Raven’s skin. She unzips her jacket and slips it off. Glancing behind herself she sees the concrete tunnels. In front of her is outdoors, even though it’s impossible. Outside is snow and cold and bitter, biting air. Underneath her feet are roots and grass and other small plants. As far as she can see are trees and bushes. She swears she hears the sound of birds.

A small blue butterfly flutters between her and Anya; it glows softly.

“Commander’s Monarchs…” Raven whispers. “Where are we?”

Anya’s lips twitch into a smile and falter once more. “Lexa’s greenhouse.”

“This is… inside?”

“Entirely.”

Anya keeps walking down the path in, now dirt instead of concrete. Raven follows slowly behind, picking her way over roots. Her body is starting to grow weary even though she hasn’t gone far. Weeks of being sick have drained her. She pushes on, trying to keep up with Anya’s relaxed pace even as her head starts to throb and her stomach clenches with a sharp ache.

Above the canopy of the trees is a glass dome. Raven can just make it out between the leaves. Beyond is a brilliant white blue sky. Snow clings in clumps to the metal struts between the glass panels, but it’s melted. The heat of the greenhouse keeps the glass clear.

Tucked between the trees is a small building.

The greenhouse must cover as much land as the base of the tower. 

“Who is allowed in here?”

“Lexa.”

“In the whole greenhouse?” Raven snorts.

“In the workshop.” Anya slips a key from her pocket and opens the door. “And now you may come and go as you please.” She turns and holds out the key.

Raven holds out her hand. Anya sets the key gently in her hand and curls Raven’s fingers over it, squeezing her hand. Raven swallows thickly.

“As for the greenhouse, it is open to the guests of the tower, as well as anyone Lexa invites.” Anya turns and steps swiftly into the low building. “It is… a sanctuary of a different kind.”

She shuts the door behind Raven and turns the lock.

Inside is larger than Raven anticipated. The walls of the front room are filled with shelves that are filled with even more relics of pre-war Earth. A long workbench runs beneath a row of windows on the far side of the room. Two doors lead off to other rooms. Behind one door, voices can be heard.

Raven reaches out, fingertips just brushing Anya’s elbow. She pulls back quickly, as if she had been shocked. Her throat tightens and she shifts uncomfortably.

“Yes?” Anya turns, one eyebrow raised.

“Why… why are you the one showing me this place? Surely you have more important matters to attend to.” Raven bites the inside of her lip. “Or is it that I am not trusted?”

“I asked Lexa to allow me the honor,” Anya says simply. She shrugs.

That was not the answer that Raven expected. She scratches at the back of her neck and stares at the floor while she collects herself. Her heartbeat threatens the integrity of her chest.

Swallowing thickly she looks up, “What are we doing Anya?” Raven takes a step forward, closing much of the thin distance between them. “This. You’re hot and cold moment to moment.”

“I-” Anya starts with a haughty defensive tone that dies when her eyes meet Raven’s. “You confound me and I am not used to my feelings being beyond my control. I-”

The voices in the room rise in heated debate, clear through the closed door.

“You can’t take us to war again!” Raven doesn’t recognize the woman’s voice.

“I  _ can’t _ ?” Lexa snaps back.

“Lexa, Luna has a point.” Clarke’s voice is quieter, but no less clear or urgent. “ _ Skaikru _ are weak and split. The people of Polis are falling ill as well. If we go to war with  _ Azgeda _ they will bring the force of winter down upon us.”

“Listen to your  _ Skai Hainofi _ ,  _ Heda _ .”

“Luna,” Lexa’s frustration is evident even through the closed door.

Raven’s gaze flicks to Anya, still standing perilously close. One hand hovers near Raven’s shoulder. There was nearly something there between them, but duty reminds them that there are greater forces at work that they are responsible for.

Anya lets her hand fall without touching Raven as she strides quickly to the door and knocks rapidly in succession.

Once again interrupted by war and those that want their destruction.

Raven presses her hand to her chest. There’s a feeling stirring there that she hasn’t felt in months. Somewhere in the ruin of her heart is a niggling sprig of hope, easily crushed, but easily nourished as well. She sighs wistfully and follows Anya.

“Commander,” Anya nods and bows slightly as she opens the door.

“Anya,” Lexa laughs lightly, chastising. “You know my rules for this place, which it seems, I need to remind both you and Luna of.”

“Here you are no more than Lexa.” Though Raven can’t see it, she can hear the smile on Anya’s lips.

“Come, friend.”

“I’ve brought a guest,” Anya steps aside to allow Raven into the room. 

She no more than does so than Clarke squeals and jumps from her seat on the couch next to Lexa to scoop Raven up in a hug. “Raven! You’re out of bed!”

“I am.” Raven folds around Clarke, closing her eyes for a moment. She leans in and lets her weight sag against Clarke in exhaustion.

“It is good to see you about, Raven,” Lexa’s voice is softer than she remembers.

Raven cracks an eye and looks at the Commander over Clarke’s shoulder. She’s dressed in soft clothes and her face is free of war paint. Even the golden helm she typically wears is gone. She looks impossibly young and gentle. 

“So this is the famous Commander of Boom.” The third woman speaks. Her hair is wild and curling, her skin brown with the sun. Power and mischief rolls off her.

“Excuse my lack of formalities, Luna. Raven, this is Luna  _ kom Floukru. _ She leads the boat people. Luna, this is Raven Reyes.” Lexa reaches forward and turns over two mugs on the table between them. “Join us.”

It’s as if their appearance was hoped for, if not expected.

She stands and moves over to a small burner that holds a pot of water with steam rising from it.

Raven keeps hold of Clarke, leaning on her as the move back to the table. Even so she limps and find her energy waning. It hurts to hold her head up and she longs to curl up on her side, slip back into oblivion where the pain was little more than a nightmare.

“Take my seat,” Clarke whispers as she nudges Raven toward the couch.

Raven shakes her head.

Clarke all but pushes Raven into the more comfortable seat as she takes one of the empty chairs. Lexa slips into the other empty chair and starts to pour mugs of tea for Raven and Anya before refilling the others on the table. For a moment Anya stands awkwardly debating her options before sliding into Lexa’s vacated spot on the couch next to Raven.

Anya takes a fresh mug of tea and presses it into Raven’s hands. “Drink. Rest.”

“Thank you,” she mutters to Anya. “I’m sorry we interrupted,” Raven finds herself saying to the others.

“It’s no matter,” Lexa says. “We were merely discussing whether I would turn on hundreds of years of our culture at the request of…” Her voice trails off and her eyes fall to Clarke. “Of my trusted advisors while my coalition plots to overthrow me.”

Raven’s grip tightens on her tea mug.

“As if the  _ Azgeda _ would move against me alone. They know I don’t trust them. I expect their attack.” Lexa talks plainly. More plainly than she had dared to speak alone in her tent in the camp before the  _ Maunon _ . 

“What Lexa isn’t saying,” Luna purses her lips. “Is we don’t yet know who the  _ Azgeda _ have turned.”

“No one outside this room knows Lexa expects the coup.” Clarke says bitterly.

“Clarke wants me to call them out, shame the other clan into submission.”

Raven sips at the steaming tea. Anya’s knee bumps hers under the table and she coughs as she burns her tongue on the hot liquid. This is a war room and Anya is flirting. Hot and cold. Raven can’t keep up.

Anya shifts her knee and Raven misses the warmth. Her heart aches. After the almost admission she expected there to be something or nothing, not this halfway to neither. She shifts down into the couch and balances the warmth of the mug on her stomach. There’s a war coming whether they want it or not and her heart spends energy she doesn’t have.

“Don’t you want peace or not, Lexa?” Luna asks.

Raven cracks an eye at the silence that follows. Lexa’s glare could cut glass.

“You know full well what I want, Luna, as well as you know that it matters little how I feel or what I desire.”

Luna’s gaze flicks to Clarke but she stays silent.

Raven closes her eyes once more. Lexa’s words echo in her heart. She feels them deep in her soul. What she wants matters little. She’s a broken ruin that can barely function until she finds her way out of this situation her desires are moot. Anya can run hot and cold all she wants but Raven is barely her own. She doesn’t have enough to give to save her people and find her own solace.

It’s either or.

She’s made her choice.


	14. Chapter 14

Raven had barely left the workshop in Lexa’s in six days. The light overhead filtering through the skylight in the little house, ultimately from the greenhouse glass ceiling above, was the closest thing she had to seeing the sunlight since Anya had taken her down through the tunnels.  Outside was still covered in a treacherous layer of snow and ice according to the others.

Each morning she’d slip behind the tapestry in the entrance hall and quietly make her way through the underground temple where Gaia seemed to live. She had yet to see the room empty and Gaia was never far from the alter where she knelt and supplicated herself. With each passing day Gaia had become less abrasive and more curious about Raven’s presence. On the fifth day she had brought Raven a late lunch noting that if Raven were going to survive the winter she needed to keep up her strength and she would need that if she were going to win the people of Polis over.

Convincing the grounders to use tech was going to be as hard as convincing them that the  _ Skaikru _ meant them no harm.

Raven groans and stretches out her shoulders. The main issue she faced was that anything she wanted to get working needed a power source and she wasn’t allowed to tap into any of the currently existing ones. Electricity was precious and fickle in Polis. The generators required oil, which was in short supply, and there was no promise of any renewable resources.

On the Ark they had used solar power, but she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to get enough sunlight to power anything of use. Everything on the ark had been high efficiency, so electrical consumption had been minimal. On Earth, that was questionable.

That morning though she had uncovered what looked to be a solar panel. A single solar panel. It was hope. If she could find more, convince Gaia to let her know if there were any others stored in Polis or afixed the roofs of houses then maybe she could rig up some kind of heater, something to get them through the brusk winter.

Unless she was in the greenhouse she was constantly cold, bundled in furs and blankets, even in her room with the fire going. There was a limited amount of firewood she had been allotted as it had to last the winter. 

Sunlight though, was eternal.

Raven cracks her hands, stretches out her fingers. She’s got a lot of cleaning to do before this solar panel is anywhere close to ready to be tested. With another sigh she sets back to scrubbing off the rust.

A click in the lock signals someone’s arrival. It’s either Lexa or Anya or Clarke. Raven frowns and keeps her focus on the task at hand. 

Clarke bounces into the room, surprisingly light after the stress of the last few weeks. There’s a wicked grin pulling on the corner of her mouth like she has a secret, a plan. She’s pleased. 

Clarke leans on the workbench, “Raven, it’s time for a break.”

Raven glances up at Clarke without moving her head and raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t give me that look.” Clarke reaches out and grabs Raven’s hands, gently extracting the scrub brush from them and setting it aside. “Ever since you’ve been well enough to get out of bed you’ve been holed up in here and ignoring everyone.”

“Lexa gave me an order-”

“-It wasn’t an-”

Raven narrows her eyes at Clarke.

“-order…”

“If we want to survive I need to fix this,” Raven gestures at the mess of rusted metal on the 

workbench. “I have yet to get anything work, and it’s getting colder each day.”

“There’s a celebration today with massive fire, it’s warm.”

“It’s warm here and wood is a non-sustainable resource.”

“And there are massive amounts of food.” Clarke wheedles. 

“An unsustainable use of food in light of the influx in population.” Raven’ frowns and grabs for her scrub brush.

“Raven.”

“Clarke.”

“It’s Yule.”

Raven drops the brush with a heavy sigh. She won’t win this; Clarke has set her mind on something, and unless Raven wants to fight her, it’s better to just give in. “What’s that?”

“Wintertime celebration with food and drink and gifts. Lexa said I needed to bring you and get you dressed for the celebration. Everyone will be there.”

“I don’t have anything to present yet, everything is too rusted.” Raven grumbles. Desperation clings to her, churning her stomach and filling her with self-loathing. Since she woke she hasn’t seen anyone but Clarke, Lexa, and Anya. The last she saw of Octavia was a fever dream, and the rest of her friends have been kept at bay by the weather and a lack of access to private sections of Polis.

Clarke sighs heavily and fixes Raven with a look strong enough to make Raven’s insides turn. It’s part pleading, part  _ I will drag you there myself and deposit you to be presented _ .

Raven takes Clarke’s offered hand and lets herself be led around the table and out the door. Clarke grabs Raven’s jacket and shoves it at her. 

“I don’t know how you make it from the tower to here in just that.”

Raven glances down at the worn red jacket she’s been wearing since she landed on the ground. The tunnels she takes are secret. Anya had been distressed the first time she took Raven down to them, even as she defended Raven’s right to be there to Gaia. 

“I’ve been given access to a secret tunnel that goes beneath the tower.” Raven shrugs on her jacket. 

A look of relief passes over Clarke’s face. She’s only dressed in a thin blue jacket herself. “Good, then you can come with me through Lexa’s secret entrance. She uses it to escape meetings she doesn’t want to attend.” Clarke laughs to herself a moment, “You’re up for a few stairs?”

“Always.” Raven rolls her eyes and shoves Clarke lightly. Stairs are better than ice.

Raven follows Clarke through the greenhouse to the far end near the back of Polis tower.  They veer off the path into a thicket of trees. Tiny branches whip them as they walk past, and they duck under larger, low hanging branches from young trees. On either side, just past where Raven can make out through the underbrush she can see rock wall converging on either side.

She steps over a root and stumbles. The other side was much lower than the closer side. Raven looks back from where they came to find that they’ve been travelling steadily downhill into a crevice hid by the trees and bush.

Clarke turns back and beckons her on. 

Plants give way to rock tunnel and rock tunnel gives way to carved stone. Before long the floor turns smooth and Raven knows they’re back underneath Polis tower. The way is lit with orange lamps that seem to flicker with every breath she takes. The tunnel slopes gently upwards until it hits a few stairs. The stairs lead to another hall, which leads to another.

“That’s the back way up to the upper levels,” Clarke gestures at a large staircase beyond a crumbling doorway.

Raven glances inside and up. The height is dizzying. 

“We aren’t climbing that?”

Clarke shakes her head, “Thankfully, no. Only Lexa does that for fun, and emergencies.”

“Emergencies?” Raven intones.

“Someone does want to assassinate her. Several someones.”

“Then why is it unguarded?”

Someone clears their throat. Raven spins on the spot, her hip protesting, a scream dying in her throat. She nearly punches a guard in the gut but he catches her hand.

He tips his head to the side. “You’re quick.”

Raven glares him down until he releases her hand. Clarke tugs at her elbow and she pulls away from him slowly, staring him down. 

They make their way up to the upper floors of the tower where they live now. It’s strange to think that they live in a stone building. There’s no electric hum up here, no sealed in warmth of the air. Raven shivers as they change clothes for the party. Laid out on Clarke’s bed are soft clothes, leftover relics of Earth before mixed with well worn leathers: gifts from Lexa.

Clarke avoids answering anything about the Yule celebration insisting Raven will see in a few minutes when they arrive. There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes that Raven is wary of, but even so she’s glad to see it there. Even in times of war they have to be able to find the moments that make life worth fighting for.

She hopes that the grounders have similar such aspirations. After her argument with Anya she doesn’t feel safe assuming. The differences in their cultures are subtle yet deep.

The great hall bustles with people. As Clarke and Raven make their way inside a dozen or so people flood in and out around them. A few give them sidelong glances but for the most part they make their way past the tables laden with food and people without much fuss.

Piles of furs and jackets dot the edges of the room. Tables are arranged in large hollow squares with fire pits at the center for warmth. 

Raven glances up, above them there are holes cut in the ceiling for the smoke to escape from. Even so the ceiling is blackened with soot and oil and who knows what else. It’s filthy but also somehow warm and real and alive.

She misses the echoing shout of her own name from Octavia’s throat right up until the younger girl’s arms wrap around her with a veracity she isn’t ready for. Raven tightens her arms around her friend and feels a tension release that she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The last time they’d both been conscious had been before the attack on Mount Weather.

The pang of guilt wraps around her heart and she holds onto Octavia more tightly. They’re both alive and that’s what matters. She keeps screaming it like a mantra in her head hoping that she’ll believe it.

“How are you?”

“Me?” Octavia shakes her head, almost laughing. “I’m fine.”

“You were nearly blown up!” Raven holds her at arms length. 

Octavia shrugs. “So were you.”

Lincoln steps up behind Octavia and wraps her in a hug. He smiles at Raven but his attention is at the other grounders around them, watching for their reaction. When they don’t advance he relaxes.

“It’s good to see you up and about,” Raven nods at Lincoln.

“As it is, you,” he replies. Octavia turns and kisses his cheek.

Clarke appears again and presses an old worn ceramic mug into Raven’s hands. It’s warm. She sniffs at the drink: it’s sweet but there’s a bite to it.

“What is this?”

“Mulled wine. Drink it.”

Raven sips at the drink experimentally. It blossoms heat in her chest and she drinks a quarter of the mug down before Clarke grabs her arm.

“The others want to see you,” she leans in and whispers in Raven’s ear. She’s close enough that Raven can can smell the sweet of the mulled wine on her breath.

They only make it a few steps before more  _ Skaikru _ catch up with them. Murphy makes an awkward hello before slipping back into his seat and leaning into a devious and somber looking girl. Bellamy follows suit with the awkwardness. There had been so much infighting happening with all of them from the ark and Raven had missed the last few weeks. She’s been on the outskirts of it all. 

She’s starting to feel like an outsider everywhere but the workshop.

Gina pulls her into a hug and then retreats, pulling Bellamy away. Next are Jasper and Harper and Monty and Monroe. Abby and Kane wave at her from a table over. It’s the same question again and again.  _ How are you? Where have you been? _

She talks around the answer. There are days she still feels weak and every day is filled with pain. It’s why she’s kept to the workshop: there’s no one there that judges her for how far she’s fallen from herself. The rusted scraps of metal don’t look at her with pity.

Raven sees Anya before Anya sees Raven. Her stomach clenches and her heart stops. The grip she has on her mug feels as if it might shatter it. The last few times they’ve been around each other they’ve been cautiously friendly. Neither has brought up the conversation they had in the woods, but it’s always there, hovering between them. 

Niylah, the woman from the night after the attack on Mount Weather, hands a mug to Anya. Raven takes a half step behind Clarke who is deep in friendly conversation with Luna. Each of the grounders is dressed down. Even Anya, normally in leather armour of some sort, has dressed up, or down, as it may be in gentler, softer fabrics. And though all their clothes look similar, each somehow represents their clan. Not many of the clans are represented, and many of those that are neither  _ Trikru _ nor  _ Floukru _ are anxious. They huddle together and whisper.

The great hall is marked by pockets of joy and those of unease.

Niylah and Anya talk for a few moments, lightness and laughter, then Niylah leans in to kiss Anya on the cheek before she leaves. It’s friendly. There’s no lingering looks, just a soft ease that settles between them. Like Anya had said, they’re no more than friends.

Raven has no place to be jealous. She gave up that right a while back. Despite the continued flirtation until one of them makes a move it’s pointless. They’ve reached a standstill that neither is willing to break in fear of upsetting their delicate friendship. Yet still she feels that acidic pull in her gut. She tries to shove it down, turn her attention back to Clarke and Luna, but there’s no pulling her focus back from the sharp line of Anya’s jaw and the curve of her cheek that Raven know’s is soft to the touch.

A hand grabs her arm and shakes gently.

“You should go speak with her,” Luna says quietly as she leans in.

Raven shakes her head, “If she wants to talk to me she’ll find me.”

“And how do you know she isn’t thinking the same thing?”

Raven holds the mug of mulled wine to her chest.The warmth seeps through her shirt and she presses the mug harder against her sternum as if to convert the warmth into comfort. Anya has made it clear that she cares more deeply than she ever allows herself to let on and that doing so aggravates her to no end.

A hand presses to her back and a chin rests on her shoulder. Raven turns to look at Clarke who is wide eyed and pouting. She rolls her eyes but finds herself smiling regardless.

“Go talk with her, for all her sakes, but especially mine, because Lexa is growing tired of Anya’s eternal grumpiness.” Clarke butts her head against Raven’s cheek and nudges her toward Anya who is now standing alone near the table with the mulled wine.

Raven drains the last of her mug and quickens her pace as much she can without limping. It isn’t terribly fast but she reaches the table just as Anya turns to leave. Fate. Destiny. An omen. Maybe a sign. Whatever it is they nearly run into each other.

Anya reaches out to steady Raven with her free hand. She smiles quickly but softly and withdraws her hand as soon as she sees that Raven is steady. 

“Can I?” Anya gestures, indicating Raven’s empty mug.

Raven holds out the mug, “Thanks.”

She rocks on her heels. Anya hands her a full mug. They stand in silence, awkward silence. Surrounded as they are by friends and strangers the bravado has gone out of the both of them. They don’t have the cover of the forest or the cloak of exhaustion to hide their flirtation behind. 

“Lexa says you’re making progress in the workshop.”

“Not a lot, so much is rusted and ruined,” she sips at her drink.”But I’ve made magic from worse.”

Anya raises an eyebrow,”Is that so?”

Raven takes a half step closer and is rewarded with another quick half smile. “It is. I’m the youngest zero-G mechanic the ark has ever seen.”

“I’d like to see you at work sometime,” Anya glances around before stepping forward and leaning in to whisper in Raven’s ear. “It’s been awhile since we allowed ourselves time alone.”

Raven swallows down a cough of surprise, “It has, I wasn’t certain that you wanted to spend that kind of time.”

Anya reaches out and cups Raven’s chin.

The moment their skin touches a bell rings out in the hall and Anya’s hand drop to her waist and the dagger ther; her focus is glued to the dias at the end of the room. The chatter in the hall fades and fizzles until you can hear each scrape of a foot on the floor.

Lexa stands front and center on the dias, below and to her right stands Clarke. Lexa raises a mug of mulled wine and a deafening cheer goes up in the hall. Raven’s heart rate triples as a wave of panic rushes over her. It’s as loud as the attacks and even louder than the celebration where Raven had lost hope.

The roar grows louder than it should. Anya presses down on Raven’s shoulder. “Get down.”

Not again. 

Raven reaches for Anya but she’s already lost to the crowd.

“ANYA!”

The shouts of jubilation turn to fear on the far side of the hall. Screams echo and the sound of furniture being overturned crashes around them. The people in the hall are not all warriors, but the farmers and weavers and tanners and blacksmiths, they’re the children and elderly.

Lexa jumps of the stage, a sword in hand though she had been wearing none. Fire blossoms whee she had been standing and a foul stench permeates the air. Raven coughs and gags. An explosion rocks the building.

Raven is knocked against the table as people rush past. She freezes. The Azgeda had taken the last of her bombs. The Azgeda who weren’t in attendance tonight, nor even, as far as Raven understood, in Polis. 

Her knees give out but before she hits the ground someone wraps the arms around her biceps. 

“Run!” Luna shoves her toward the wall behind the table covered in tapestries. 

Raven’s legs catch her as she stumbles. She tries to scan the room for Anya but chaos hides everything except the gaping hole in the wall on the far side of the room. She made the thing that caused that.

Luna shoves at her again and she puts her hands up, expecting to crash into the wall. The tapestry gives and she stumbles forward once more. Falling to her knees in a rocky, dimly lit tunnel.

Hands haul her up and Raven finds herself face to face with Clarke for a brief moment before she’s pulled into a hug. She doesn’t have time to ask for an explanation before the tapestry is thrust aside once more. 

Lexa leans heavily against Anya. Blood drips down the side of her face and she’s limping. Her sword drags uselessly on the ground. For a moment the five of them stand there staring at each other and back at the tapestry covering their escape.

“Is it acceptable that I attack back now?” Lexa spits.

Clarke clenches her jaw.

“Preferably,” Luna snaps back.

Lexa pushes herself off Anya and sucks in a breath. “Find out what you can. Leave as soon as you’re ready to go.”

Anya hesitates. Her gaze flicks from Lexa to Raven and back to Lexa. “Let me get you safely back to the tower.”

“ _ Now! _ ” Lexa hisses.

Anya nods and runs down the tunnel without a second glance.

Raven watches her go. An explosion rocks the hall behind them and the opening they had come in through collapses.

“Run!” Lexa yells. 

There’s no time to think about Anya heading into danger. There’s only the four of them and running for their lives.


End file.
